


Be My Friend God Damn It

by Zarla



Category: Left 4 Dead
Genre: Bickering, Female Characters, Fights, Friendship, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Teasing, Unreliable Narrator, bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How two women became friends before they became zombies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is about two original characters of mine before they became zombies. You can read more about them [here](http://www.ashido.com/huntersmoker/).

**Title:** Be My Friend God Damn It (Optional Subtitle: Feelings are Hard)  
 **Rating:** PG-13 for language, probably  
 **Pairing:** None! That's right, it's like 50k of gen, what's wrong with me  
 **Warnings:** Also none.  
 **Summary:** At first Hunter's determined to hate her for making her pay her back for that stupid window, but then it turns out she's not very good at hating her. So she decides to become her friend instead.

Turns out she's not very good at that either.

 **Notes:** Set before they were infected.

* * *

It wasn't like she meant to do it. People kept telling her that that didn't make a difference after whatever it was had already happened, but she firmly believed it did. She didn't _mean_ to do it. That meant something, right? It should.

She'd just gotten a little overzealous while running, a little careless, underestimated how fast she was going, and she thought it might be funny to give whoever lived in that apartment a good scare. Making a loud noise by landing her jump on the windowsill would do a good job of that.

But then of course she miscalculated just enough, just that little bit, and her feet didn't land on the windowsill or on the window frame, but right in the window itself. And it might as well have not been there at all for all the resistance it gave her. Her foot went through and the rest of her followed suit, sliding right inside the apartment like she'd meant to do that. Which she didn't.

Not again.

Maybe she'd get lucky and whoever owned this place wouldn't be home, and she could just run off and pretend it hadn't happened. They'd never track her down if she was fast enough, and she could be pretty damn fast when she had to be. She barely had time to consider the possibility before it got shot down. Someone was home alright, and they were not happy.

"What the fuck?!" Through the loud crash of glass and blinds, and she almost didn't hear them, focused as she was on busting through the window and landing flat on her ass. Not the most graceful thing she'd ever done, that was for sure, and shit, she was probably going to end up with a pretty sizable assbruise as a result.

As for the person she'd suddenly burst in on, they were standing against the opposite wall of what looked like their kitchen, holding a butter knife in one hand with the blade down in the stabbing position. She was a tall, old, ugly white lady with dirty brown hair, and Hunter sized her up in an instant. She was totally going to hold a grudge about what was really an accident, and probably wasn't going to give her a chance to explain. Shit. She really didn't want to get arrested again.

"My window!" While the woman held her knife like she was going to fend off her intruder, at the moment she seemed more focused on the damage done to her apartment than the intruder herself. She stared at the remains of her window with obvious dismay, then looked at her and their eyes met. Brown, like her hair, and she looked pissed. Man, she had a big nose. "What the hell?"

Hunter rubbed her back where she'd landed, looking back at the now-empty window frame and considering how best to explain what had happened. Probably wasn't much she could do or say at this point, since this lady didn't look like the understanding or forgiving type, so she turned back to her and shrugged. The lady raised an eyebrow, frowning.

"Sorry about that."

"Guess you're not hurt..." Mumbled, almost reluctantly, and then her eyes went back to the window. She ran a hand through her hair, and her frown deepened. "My window... Christ, I'm going to have to pay for this."

Tch, just like she thought. She only cared about her apartment. Some people were so insensitive. "Yeah, I'm fine by the way." She stood up and brushed herself off, trying to avoid the glass on the floor, and did a quick check of her pouch and pockets. Everything still accounted for and intact, as far as she could tell, although she'd have to do a more thorough check later when she didn't have a crabby old woman glaring at her.

"Why in god's name did you jump through my window?" she asked her, her eyes narrowed and with a tinge of incredulousness coming through her irritation in her voice. She was still holding the butter knife like she was going to stab her with it (a laughable idea at best), and from a quick glance at the cluttered table, she'd apparently interrupted her right in the middle of a meal, and probably the only one of the day by the looks of her. Christ, Hunter never wanted to be that out of shape. How could people treat their bodies like that? And she definitely smelled cigarette smoke, gross. A smoker too, of course. Why some people were so set on killing themselves she'd never know.

"It wasn't on purpose," she said, and god, she wished she hadn't gotten caught. This wasn't looking very good for her.

"How do you do _that_ by accident? Don't tell me someone pushed you." More irritated now, and she seemed a bit nonplussed by how Hunter was answering her questions. Probably wanted her to grovel for mercy, and Hunter wasn't about to do that. Even if she had kicked out her window (by accident), it wasn't like she meant to do it. The lady looked back at her window, looking all the more upset at its destruction by the moment. "Ugh, how much is this going to cost me..."

"I was running and I missed a jump, okay." Someone who looked that unhealthy probably had no idea what Parkour was, so she wasn't about to get into more detail now. She just wanted to get out of here as fast as possible.

Sure enough, the woman seemed both annoyed and confused by that answer. "Why were you jumping around my window?"

"I was running by it." Jeez, some people just didn't know how to listen.

"Pretty sure you jumped through it."

"It was an accident, I told you."

The woman was still frowning at her, and she wasn't sure she could make her mood much worse. Definitely didn't look like it. She'd never seen so many angry lines on a person's face before, and she'd seen a lot of angry people. How old _was_ this lady? And she was so tall too, she'd never seen a lady that tall before.

"So, you got any reason why I shouldn't call the coppers on you right now?"

Hunter blinked at her, and yet the lady's expression stayed perfectly serious. Did she seriously just say coppers? Seriously? Seriously?

"The what?"

"You heard me." And the woman pulled a cellphone from one of the pockets of her plaid overshirt (was she gay? She sure looked super butch, but she wasn't sure), which put a stop to Hunter's giggling rather quickly. Oh shit. "If you got one, you better make it quick."

"Don't call the cops, okay?" A little more desperate than she'd liked. Shit! So much for playing it cool. "It was an accident, alright?"

"Not good enough." She flipped her phone open, her thumb ready to tap out the numbers. Hunter held out her hands to her, her attempts at nonchalance now forgotten.

"Wait wait wait! Don't, don't, I'll... I'll pay you back! For the window."

The lady raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical.

"Just, just tell me how much it is, I'll pay you back for it. Then we'll be even, okay?" Hunter didn't want to do that in the slightest, but it was the only solution she could think of and the alternative was worse. She had to go with it now. "And we won't ever have to see each other again or bring cops into it, or nothing. Okay?"

"Pay me back for it?" Still doubtful, and she turned her head slightly, regarding her like she was some kind of weird bug. "You even got a job, kid?"

"Yeah, I got a job," Hunter snapped back, more offended by the insinuation than she would have anticipated. Who did she think she was? They met like five minutes ago! "What do _you_ do, stand in a corn field and scare crows?"

"Hmph." The lady tossed her head, not as affected by her comment as Hunter had hoped, and she looked down her huge nose at her. "You've got a smart mouth for someone who owes me hundreds of bucks, for all I know."

Hunter blanched a bit in spite of herself at the thought. That was a lot of money, but she really didn't want to get arrested again. Ugh, there was no way out of this! Why did this have to happen to her?

"It was an accident." Why didn't people ever get that?

"Yeah, keep on sayin' that, done a lot of good for you so far." The lady reached for a pack of cigarettes on her table, pulling one out and putting it between her thin lips in a series of practiced, smooth motions. The woman was definitely on the fast track to cancer town. Idiot.

She raised her lighter to her mouth, and Hunter spoke up. "Could you not...? I don't smoke."

The lady raised an eyebrow at her again, like she couldn't believe that she'd say something so stupid, and then said slowly, "Your loss then, isn't it?" And she deliberately lit her cigarette.

What a bitch. If she wanted to kill herself fine, but secondhand smoke was not a joke. Christ, Hunter could not get out of this deathtrap fast enough. This was the worst.

"Alright, empty your pockets."

"What?" Hunter blinked at her, startled by her sudden and unwarranted audacity. Was that an _order?_ Who did she think she was?

"I let you get out of here without gettin' your name, I'm never seein' you again, and I'm never gettin' my window fixed either." Shit, she was onto her. "You got some ID on you, don't you, kid? Let's see it."

She still had her phone at ready, an unspoken and effective threat. As galling as her sudden command might have been, there wasn't much Hunter could do about it except comply. Ugh, what a shitty situation to be in. Hunter gave her her best glare, trying to convey that she wasn't happy about this and wouldn't do it if she had a choice and that the old lady hadn't gotten the best of her so she better not think that she had, and the woman just kept staring at her with that bored look, baggy old eyes half-lidded. Figures she'd get caught by the worst person ever.

"You can call me Hunter," she said under her breath, as she tossed her wallet onto the table. Not that she wanted to talk to her at all, but it was better than being called 'kid', like she was five years old. Like she didn't get enough of that already.

The lady didn't seem to acknowledge what she'd said, instead leaning back against her table, her ankles crossed, as she picked up Hunter's wallet and began rifling through it. She did it so casually, like it was hers and she'd already won, and it was really starting to piss Hunter off. Ugly old lady thought she'd got the best of her, she'd show her.

"Uh huh." The lady pulled out her student ID, flipping it between her fingers before pocketing it. "What else you got?"

"What, you gonna rob me now too?"

"I'd jump through one of _your_ windows, but I don't have a screw loose like you do. That's if you actually have a house and don't just jump into other people's."

"I didn't mean to jump in your stupid apartment!" Hunter raised her voice a little, even though she didn't really mean to and she didn't want her to think she'd actually gotten under her skin, and yet the woman didn't seem that impressed by her change in tone. Which was weird, since Hunter probably could have snapped her in half. The thought was tempting. "Like I'd even want to, with the way it smells."

She took a deep drag off her cigarette, and then blew the smoke in her face. "What else you got on you?"

That's it, this lady had made an enemy for life now. Stupid old smoking hag. Hunter wasn't going to forget this, and she was definitely going to make her regret it. Someday. Hunter waved the smoke away from her face, making her displeasure about it none too clear. The fact that the lady smirked in response only made her that much more determined to exact her vengeance someday.

"Isn't the ID enough?"

"You can get another one. I need something that'll guarantee you'll come back here after I get the damage appraised."

"Yeah, I don't really want to do that," Hunter said, in her best imitation of the woman's condescending tone.

She raised her phone, and dialed a number. The beep made Hunter tense in spite of herself. "Me or the cops, your choice."

Hunter made an angry sound in her throat, her fists clenched, this close to punching her and the lady held her phone up, numbers clear on the display. Her fingers rested too close to finishing the call for comfort, leaving Hunter frustratingly, infuriatingly helpless. _Fuck you fuck you fuck you!_

She had to think about it, and she did have something that she didn't want to leave with her, and something that she would definitely come back for, and she couldn't believe she had to do this. With something close to a growl, Hunter dug into her pouch and pulled out her iPod, and she was tempted to just throw it right in her face, but breaking it wouldn't do her any good. She set it down on the table, crossing her arms immediately afterwards, seething. Goddammit, her iPod! Her IPOD of all things! Ray gave her that for her birthday, and it'd taken her ages to get everything on it just the way she wanted it.

The woman picked it up and looked it over, turning it around in her hands a few times.

"You ever seen one of those before, grandma? It's like a miniature radio you can hold right in your hand!" She sounded more angry than sarcastic, but she didn't care enough to try and fix it. She couldn't believe this lady had her iPod. She couldn't believe this was happening to her.

"Ha ha." She was still studying it, and then she held it up. "So this doohickey is important to you?"

"Sure, whatever." Hunter kept her arms crossed, looking off to one side.

"Hmph. Well, I got your ID and your thing here." She looked at her window again, then back to her. "I'll need to get someone to look at the damage and see how much it'll cost to get fixed. You know the way back here from wherever you came from?"

"Yeah." Still sulking.

"Fine. Then a week from now come back here, and I'll tell you how much you owe me. Pay up, and I'll keep the rest of it quiet so you can keep hopping through windows. Deal?"

"Fine, whatever." God, why wasn't this over? Old hag was in love with the sound of her own gravely stupid voice or something. Hunter rolled her eyes as hard as she could, and when she looked back at her, she was holding out her hand.

"Then let's shake on it."

What the hell, like this was all respectable all of a sudden? She wasn't sure if she was more irritated at the attempt at civility or that the old lady had caught her so off guard with it. "Oh cmon, seriously?"

"Do hooligans not know how?"

"Did it hurt teleporting here from the 18th century?"

"Not as much as it'll hurt when they throw your ass in jail."

"Fine." She reached out and took her hand, and almost immediately wanted to pull away. It felt bony and cold and she could practically feel all the tendons under her skin. How creepy. Maybe if she was lucky the lady would be dead by this time next week. She couldn't live for much longer when she was in this kind of shape. "Ugh, you got a skeleton hand." Briefly she thought that maybe she shouldn't have said that, but it paled in comparison to how satisfying it felt to say.

"What, compared to your beefy mitts? You're all calluses. No wonder you're so clumsy."

"I'm not clumsy!" Hunter said, a bit louder than she would have liked again, and how did she keep getting under her skin like this? Her friends teased her all the time and yet something about this woman was driving her crazy. She never reacted the way she thought she should. "I just made a mistake, that's all. It could happen to anyone. You don't know what you're talking about."

"A mistake doing what-"

Hunter cut her off before she could finish her smart comment. "It's Parkour, the art of movement, and-"

And she cut her off in return. "I don't know what Parking is-"  
"Parkour-"  
"-Parking is and I don't care, what I do know is that you're paying me back for that window one way or another. I'm not losing my damage deposit over your shenanigans." The woman shook her hand once, firmly, like she was setting what she said in stone, and Hunter could tell that she was trying to grip her hand hard, to convey the seriousness of her statement. Hmm...

Hunter squeezed her hand back in response, to show her how it was really done, and like she thought, it was no contest. The woman made a pained sound and tried to jerk her hand free, a lapse in her cool demeanor. "Ow, stop it-"

Hunter refused to let go at first, letting her struggle to free herself unsuccessfully a little just to show her that she was in control, and then she released her. There, that made her feel better. Not so high and mighty now when she could crush her hand without even trying.

Once it was free, the lady held it to her chest and rubbed at her knuckles, giving her a much more annoyed and much more sincere glare of irritation. Success.

"So you got my name and my iPod, but what's yours?" Hunter felt better now that she'd gotten the best of her in at least one way, a mischievous smile coming on. "In case I want to go kick out some more of your windows later."

She didn't seem to appreciate Hunter flaunting her strength like that, or her change in attitude, and she kept rubbing her hand. She frowned around her cigarette, and breathed out some smoke through her nose before speaking.

"Call me Smoker, if you want."

"Right." She rubbed her hand on her pants, trying to get rid of that creepy cold feeling she got from their handshake. "Then I guess I'll see you in a week." Not that she wanted to come back, but she tried to hang onto her more cocky attitude and make it sound like she didn't care. The woman didn't seem to like it, which was a plus, and it did make her feel better. She started heading for the window.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving, what does it look like?"

"Out the window?"

"Yeah, what else? It's how I came in, isn't it?"

"You could use the door, like a sane person. There's still glass everywhere."

Like she cared if she cut herself. Hunter jumped through to the other side, doing her best to avoid the glass lining the edges, and looked back in. Smoker stared at her, a bemused expression on her face.

"Nah." With a satisfied smirk back at her, and Smoker tilted her head, almost curiously.

Before she turned to go, Smoker spoke again. "If you don't come back, I can't guarantee the safety of this gizmo you got here. Looks real fragile..."

"Don't-" More distressed than she should have sounded, and she gritted her teeth and cursed. Ugh, every time she thought she'd gotten the best of her! "Fine, fine! I get it, I'll come back, okay? God."

"You better!" The last thing she heard as she began scaling the fire escape upwards.

\---

Of all the fucking luck. Of all the fucking luck. She couldn't even say that the day had been going well up to that point, since honestly it hadn't been, but getting her window broken by some random street rat just ruined it completely. Whatever vestiges of a good day she might have salvaged from it, all gone down the tubes. Great. This was great. This was just what she needed. And in a way, she wasn't even sure she was surprised that this happened to her, it was just the kind of thing she needed after the week she'd had. Week, month, whatever. Shit.

What were the odds? Really, what were the odds some punk kid would randomly fall through her window? What the hell, world? At least she had something to track her down again, since she was sure the kid would have probably just vanished otherwise. She was probably out kicking in other people's windows or throwing rocks or spray painting cops or something, god only knew and god only cared.

Stupid punk kid. Another person in this stupid shitty world who never thought about anyone else, just did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted and ran roughshod over anyone who didn't put up a fight. Well, Smoker was putting up a fight about this. That stupid kid was going to pay for this this time. There were going to be consequences. She wasn't going to let someone else try to push her around, especially someone who just busted in her window for absolutely no reason, apparently just to piss her off.

Like she really needed anything to get any worse, but of course it did because that's how the world worked for her. She cleaned up all the glass (cut her hand pretty bad god _damn_ it) and called her landlord, told him about what had happened, and he was skeptical of her story that some random kid had jumped through her window, while she was home, and then mysteriously vanished. For the fiftieth time, Smoker regretted letting that kid get away. It was already biting her in the ass and this probably wouldn't be where it ended.

She was right, of course. Inspecting the damage, the landlord told her again that he was skeptical that someone kicked in her window, had a chat with her, then ran off. She showed him the ID she'd gotten off of her, and then had to go through the whole story of why she didn't just turn the girl over to the cops. Frankly, it probably would have been easier in the long-run.

"She gave you this?" He looked up from the ID with a raised eyebrow.

"She said she'd pay me back for the window."

"Right." He didn't seem convinced of that either. "Real considerate vandal you got here. You sure _you_ didn't break this window?"

"Yeah." Trying to keep her frustration out of her voice. God, she hated talking to him. She knew complaining about the heating so much was going to come back to haunt her someday. "Not like I got a reason to."

"Just sayin', it'd be real convenient to have an ID like this lyin' around for when you broke somethin', so you could blame this girl instead." Giving her a pointed look, in spite of his faux casual tone. "Wouldn't be the first time someone tried to weasel out of paying damages."

Goddamn it.

In the meantime, she taped a garbage bag over the hole where her window was, cursing Hunter under her breath the entire time, and waited to hear back from her landlord. He estimated it was around $300 worth of damages, although he said he'd get her an official invoice later "so your new friend can pay it for you." He said he'd send someone around to fix it in the next few days, which meant probably a week. A week with nothing between her and the outside but a garbage bag, and it was getting cold outside.

Fucking ridiculous is what it was.

Smoker spent the week trying to sleep and mostly failing, now nervous and easily awakened by any suspicious noises as well as the sound the wind made against the bag, and furiously trying to think of what she'd say to the little wretch when she came back. _If_ she came back, and given her luck lately she wouldn't be surprised if she didn't. Why not, who gives a shit about someone's window, what did she care? She didn't even seem that sorry for breaking it, just sorry that she got caught. Typical.

Well, Smoker had her ID, and she had her thing, her iPod, so that was something. And she was going to make damn sure that Hunter did not get them back until she'd been completely compensated.

Hunter wasn't just going to get away with crossing her. She was going to make sure of that.

She was at her table, eating, one week since it had happened, when Hunter's voice made her start and almost spill her coffee all over herself.

"Hello?"

"What- who is that? Where are you?" She stood up, already angry that she'd gotten the drop on her which set the mood for the rest of the conversation perfectly.

"I'm outside. Should I come around?" Didn't bother saying who she was, probably assuming that Smoker knew. Which she did, but still.

"Outside my window?" Probably hoping to kick in her new glass, which still hadn't been put in. "Of course you are." Rolling her eyes. "Yes, come around. I'll tell them to buzz you in."

She heard the girl take off, and she sat back down at her table with a sigh. She was not in the mood for this, Christ. Remembering that the kid seemed averse to it before, she picked up her pack of cigarettes and lit one up. Might as well make it an unpleasant experience for both of them, and as far as she was concerned there was no situation that couldn't be improved with a cigarette or two.

A knock at her door, and she sighed and got up to open it. The Asian girl looked much the same as when she'd first seen her: big legs, big ass, short black hair under another cat-eared hoodie (teal this time) and tape all over her limbs and chest for some stupid reason. She didn't look quite as disheveled though, no doubt since she hadn't fallen through any windows on the way here, although she still had a thin veneer of dirt on her face and her clothes. For all she knew or cared, the kid rolled around in mud puddles in her spare time.

"Told you I'd come back," Hunter said, and she was frowning somewhat herself. Good. She peered around her into her apartment for some reason, then stared at her like she expected her to do something. Move, probably, although Smoker wasn't planning on it. Hunter gave her a somewhat exasperated look. "Am I coming in or what?"

Forgot her big mouth. Already she felt exhausted and they'd barely even spoken to each other. She probably couldn't do _too_ much damage while inside, and she didn't want any of her neighbors coming across the odd little scene. "Fine, whatever." Smoker stepped out of the way. Hunter walked past her, giving her a sidelong glance from underneath her hood. Suspicious, or at least unhappy. Good, well that made both of them then.

Smoker traced her eyes and found her staring at the bag over the window. "Enjoying your handiwork?"

"How is it not fixed yet?" Hunter tilted her head. "Thought your landlord would'a taken care of it by now."

"Life's full of fun surprises, isn't it?" Smoker walked by her to go sit down at her table, breathing a cloud of smoke on her as she passed her by. The girl waved it away, coughing and glaring at her in the process. Good. "So, you going to pay me back after all?"

"I said I would." She crossed her arms, a bit petulant, like Smoker had no right to ask her the question. God, the nerve of this kid! Like it was Smoker's fault she'd busted her window! Like she was the bad guy here for wanting some compensation! Christ, it just pissed her off even more. Little brat.

"I don't have an invoice yet since it ain't been fixed." Smoker took another drag, her voice lowering as her mood darkened. "But you want to know how much it'll probably cost? I got an estimate."

Hunter stared at her, likewise irritated, and she kept her arms crossed. Like she had the right to be annoyed! This was her fault, the selfish brat. "How much?" And she rolled her eyes.

"He said it'll probably be in the three hundred range." That ought to change her tune, and sure enough, the girl's face fell. More money than she'd probably been hoping for, and probably more than she had on hand, guessing from her scruffy appearance. If it weren't for the iPod and ID, she would have guessed that the kid was homeless or something. Some street urchin that vandalized people's homes for kicks. She looked homeless, anyway. "You got that much moolah on you, kid?"

"Not on me," Hunter said, and she was giving her that vaguely puzzled look she'd got from her before, when she'd dropped some lingo on her. Pretty much the reaction she'd expected. No one appreciated proper slang anymore. "But I can get it."

Smoker raised an eyebrow. "Really?" It was hard to imagine anyone hiring a ragamuffin like her. Maybe she'd bum it off her parents. Either way, as long as she got it...

"I told you I would! Jeez." It was easy to rile this kid up, if nothing else. That was sort of satisfying. "You still got my iPod?"

"I got it." She took a drag. "It's safe. For now. But you're not gettin' it back 'til I get the cash."

"I know, I know." Hunter heaved a long sigh, and then she tilted her head at her. "You sound like a mobster tryin' to get protection money."

"I essentially am." She breathed out a cloud of smoke at the ceiling, and noticed the look of disgust she got from her in return. Nonsmokers were so judgmental. "Maybe next time you'll think of that before you go kicking in someone's window, eh?"

"I was trying to kick off it, not kick it in." What difference did that even make, and why did she think Smoker would care? It didn't fix her window, which she still broke, and god, it blew her mind how someone could be so irresponsible and selfish. How did people even get this way? "And I wouldn't have done it if I knew I'd miss."

"Don't fix my window, does it?" Smoker looked at the window in question, frowning. God, this kid was tiresome. "How long do you think it'll take you to raise the dough?"

And the girl laughed at her, a little. Hmmph. Philistines never appreciated a classy turn of phrase.

"Why do you talk like that?"

"What?" Smoker looked back to her, a bit annoyed that she'd changed the subject. Like she was in a position to ask her questions!

"You know, all 'dough' this and 'moolah' that. No one talks like that anymore." She was smiling, and then it changed to a grin with a bit of an edge to it, a hint of mischievousness. "You're not that old, are you, grandma?"

"Hmph." The mouth on this kid! "I'm not as old as you think I am."

"Then why the old-timey talk?" Hunter stared at her, cocking her head. The ears on her hood didn't help the curious cat impression she got from her. She was still smiling a little, something like a playful tone in her voice that really, given the circumstances, was uncalled for. The little vandal had broken her window, and now she thought she could tease her about it? "That's pretty lame."

"You're pretty lame." Smoker tapped out the ashes from her cigarette into an ashtray, the default response leaving her mouth before she even gave it any thought, and she tried to think of something a bit more clever to say. Before she could...

"Your mom's pretty lame." Just as quick a rejoinder, and with just as little apparent thought given to it. "But seriously, what's up with that?"

"And what's the deal with airline food?" Smoker waved her hand, mocking Hunter's tone as best she could. "What do you care anyway, kid?"

"It's just weird. I don't know anyone who talks like that on purpose, unless they were like... 90. You're not 90, are you, grandma?"

"Stop calling me that." With a touch more irritation than a little brat like her warranted, and she scowled. She couldn't let this kid get to her. "And I'm not that old."

"Smoker, right." And, annoyingly enough, it seemed like Hunter had noticed that she'd bugged her a little with her last comment, and was smiling. "So if you're not that old, I guess you're just a big weirdo."

Smoker was surprised she didn't append ugly to that, since that was usually the go-to insult most people had for her. Either way, she made sure to give her comment her best nonchalant shrug. Brat thought she could get under her skin. She had another thing coming. "Big weirdo or not, you still owe me three hundred bucks. So I think I win."

"Won't your landlord cover it?" Hunter didn't sound quite sure of the idea. Reminder of her debt knocked the wind out of her sails, and her smile faded fast enough. Good, served her right, sassing her like that.

"Well he would, if he thought someone else did it. But funnily enough, he thinks _I_ did it." And the subject of her irritation shifted. Stupid bullshit. That guy had it out for her since day one. It wasn't her fault the place had a lot of problems. No reason for him to take it out on her. She paid her rent, after all. But no. "Turns out your ID wasn't as much proof as I'd thought."

"What, he thinks you faked it to try and get out of it? That's..." Hunter almost sounded offended on her behalf, which seemed strange, and then she stopped to stroke her chin. "Actually that's not a bad idea."

"Apparently." Smoker took another drag, frowning. Figures Hunter'd approve. She'd probably done the exact same thing before. "Since someone else apparently had that bright idea, I'm left in the lurch. He's not buying my story, so now I'm buying the window. Or you are."

A moment, and Hunter was staring at her, oddly focused and without the low-grade hostility that had marked their interactions so far. It made her a little uncomfortable.

"Your landlord sounds like a dick."

"Story of my life, kid." Smoker waved a hand in exasperation, and then sighed. If she didn't know better, she'd almost think that Hunter was trying to empathize with her or something, and that thought made her strangely angry. "What the hell do you care anyway? It's not like you're makin' it any easier for me. This is your fault."

"I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident." That same story again, with the same injured tone, and then it shifted back to her previous one... was that concern? Was that what it was? No, that was stupid. She was messing with her. "I just thought that he'd pay for it, you know..."

"And what, you'd get off scot-free? I don't think so." Smoker pointed at her, her eyes narrowed. "Not this time, bucko. I'm tired of punks like you tryin' to push me around. You're not getting away with it this time."

"This time? What, someone broke your window before?" Skeptical, and she raised an eyebrow. Smoker frowned and looked away. That sounded a lot better in her head, and made more sense there as well.

"Not exactly, but it's the principle of it. People tryin' to walk all over me, like I won't fight back. Like they can do whatever they want. I don't put up with that." That was a bit closer, although still frustratingly vague, and Hunter probably wasn't going to get it, which only frustrated her further. "You got to face the music."

"I'm gonna pay you back for the window, I told you." And Hunter took a few steps closer to her. She still had that weird look on her face, and still had that tone in her voice she didn't care for, something that was too familiar. "But... it's not my fault your life sucks so much."

"I didn't say it was." She wasn't quite sure what to make of this change in her demeanor, and it made Smoker suspicious. "But it'd suck a lot less without punk kids jumping in my window."

"Yeah, so you've said. I told you I'll cover it, okay?" And then Hunter sat down at the table with her, close to her, and Smoker gave her a bemused look, leaning away. What was she doing. "But I guess..." She rubbed the back of her head through her hood. "I didn't really mean to make it worse. If it already sucked. Uh..." A bit frustrated at her inarticulateness. "You know what I mean."

Smoker stared at her for a few long moments. Probably the first actual apology from her, as awkward as it was, and she looked kind of sincere, although she wasn't inclined to believe that she meant it just yet. Kid still broke her window after all, and was a mouthy little selfish brat to boot. Still, she didn't think Hunter'd actually apologize. She was more anticipating her throwing whatever money she owed in her face and calling her a huge bitch, although that could still happen.

Still, she hadn't expected an apology from her. Weird how the kid kept doing that to her. Catching her off-guard. She'd be playing her like a harp and then... "Yeah well..." Smoker looked away, now feeling somewhat uncomfortable, and she took in another drag of her cigarette to try and ground herself. "I'll believe it when you pay up. How much you got on you anyway?"

"Um..." Hunter rummaged through the pouch on her sweater, pulling out a bedraggled plastic wallet with some kind of cat thing on it. Kid was really into cats for some reason. She flipped through it, and Smoker watched her face. She looked conflicted... somewhat torn as she pulled out the few greenbacks she had. "I don't really have a lot on me right now... I was gonna use it for bus fare and dinner..."

Smoker took it from the table and counted it. Some fifteen bucks. Hunter really did not want to give it to her, that much was clear.

She flipped through it idly, glanced at Hunter every now and then to see her staring at her. "Not a lot..."

She let it play out a little longer, watched Hunter squirm and glare and frown and silently plead, and then she tossed the money back onto the table. "Not worth taking for now." And Hunter stared at her, her eyes wide, and relief crossed her face for a few brief moments before she covered it up.

"How long do you think it'll take you to get the cash?"

"Uh..." Hunter was jamming the money back in her wallet. She glanced back up at her. "I dunno... maybe a while... but I'll get it, I promise."

"Uh huh." Smoker kept her demeanor cool; she'd shown her some kindness by not just taking everything she had, but she didn't want her to think she was soft. Or god forbid, had forgiven her. "Tell you what, why don't you give it to me in pieces? I'd feel better keepin' tabs on you anyway, don't want you running off."

"I'm not going anywhere without my iPod." And Hunter looked around, like she could spot it, but Smoker had hidden it in her room just in case. "What kind of pieces? How big?"

"Much as you can get. How about fifty to a hundred? Get that much, and come back here and drop it off. Repeat until I've got it all. Think that'll work?" And at Hunter's silence, she kept going. "It'll give me a chance to get an invoice for it, anyway, so I can know exactly how much it'll cost. And even if you do ditch me, at least I'll have some of it before you go."

"I won't ditch you," Hunter said, a bit sullen. "I told you I wouldn't."

"Right." Like that meant anything. "At least next time the window should be fixed. Hopefully."

"When are you home, anyway?"

"Right now's a good bet." Smoker leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. "Spend most the week working, so 9 to 5 is out. Don't want you keeping me up too late either, so nothing after midnight." A moment. "Weekends are more flexible, I guess."

"Right." Hunter nodded, and after a few seconds she sighed. Maybe the weight of the money she had to raise had hit her. At least Smoker had given her a time limit, that was more than what some people would have done. She still probably should have turned her over to the cops. "I guess that'll work."

Awkward silence.

"It's just you here, right?"

"Mm?"

"I mean... you live by yourself, right?"

"Yup." She tapped off some more ashes. Hunter was staring at her again. She didn't like it when she did that. "So it's dealing with me or nothing."

"Sounds like fun." With a roll of her eyes. Smoker felt a brief flash of irritation, but there was something about how Hunter had said that that seemed different than some of her previous smart remarks. Less sharp... less spiteful, and more... teasing.

"Not as much fun as kicking in windows, I guess." If she wanted to be a smart mouth then fine, Smoker could sass her back. There was a flicker of annoyance over Hunter's face, much like her own reaction to the girl's initial comment, but it shifted quickly to something more thoughtful.

"You should try it sometime, it's great. There's definitely no downside." Heavily sarcastic, with an unneeded roll of her eyes. "Especially when you get caught. It's awesome."

"And it's been a bed of roses for me?" Smoker raised an eyebrow at her. "I didn't turn you in, did I? I'd say you got off pretty easy."

"Yeah, blackmail's no big deal."

"You had alternatives." Smoker shrugged, closing her eyes. "I heard prison's pretty nice this time of year."

"Probably nicer than this place." She waved a hand by her face again, coughing. "The air in LA probably isn't even this bad."

Hmm. She just kept returning whatever she came up with. Most of the people Smoker argued with were quick to end it (usually with "ugly bitch", Griffin's favorite), or weren't even worth bothering with. Usually her primary goal was to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. Exchanging pointed comments didn't serve her well with that.

It'd been a while since she'd had an opportunity to do this, and admittedly she might have been rusty, and the kid was still an annoying little brat, but still... it was interesting. And she was still going to get three hundred bucks out of her one way or another, and that was almost a pleasant thought.

"I hadn't noticed." She took in a deep drag, and blew it in her face. Hunter waved it away, coughing, and Smoker found herself smiling, a little. One of the perks of smoking was being able to do that.

"You should thank me," Hunter said, after she'd gotten her breath back. "I probably improved the circulation in here like ten times."

"Huh! Next time I need some holes punched in the walls, I'll know who to call."

"You got other windows, don't you? Wouldn't be too hard to kick those out too." Hunter leaned back, her arms crossed, and she was smiling as well. She looked different when she was doing that... cockier, and she was again reminded of a cat, a sort of smug unwarranted confidence. "Unless fresh air makes you wither and die."

Smoker took in a deep drag, closed her eyes to really enjoy the feel of it, and she breathed it out towards the ceiling slowly. She took her time with each word, and she couldn't help her wide smile. "Fresh air is overrated."

"Yeah, and smoking really gets a bad rap."

Smoker turned her eyes from the ceiling to Hunter, still smiling in spite of herself, and their eyes met. Hunter still had that look on her face, satisfied and smug and playful and... sort of pleasant, and for a moment it was easy to forget that this girl had broken her window and cost her $300 and several days of sleep.

But she didn't forget, and Smoker broke away from her to put her cigarette out. This kid was still a public nuisance, a pain in the ass, and she'd still caused her no end of grief, and still had the audacity to act like she wasn't at fault, and reminding herself of all those things helped return her mood back to where it should have been. She shouldn't be bantering with her; she should be berating, belittling her. She deserved it, the little brat. The nerve of her, trying to tease her about the damages she'd caused!

And she'd gone along with it, which was even more frustrating. This girl really knew how to get under her skin somehow.

"Yeah well, I got things to do." She stood up, and Hunter blinked, apparently a bit confused by her sudden change in demeanor. "We got things arranged, so we got nothing more to talk about. I should have the invoice the next time you come back, so get going."

Hunter stared at her for a few more seconds, still caught off guard by the change in mood, and then she stood up, her hands in her pouch. "Uh, right, I got it. I got things to do too, so..."

"I don't care." Smoker went over to her door and opened it, gesturing outside. "Scram."

"I'm goin', I'm goin'." She shuffled over to the door and, by the look on her face, she seemed a little disappointed at this sudden turn of events. That was better. "Not like I want to stay in this cancer trap anyway."

She shut the door after her, brushing off her hands as she went over to her couch. She sat down, intending to turn the TV on and watch something, and instead she ran over the previous conversation in her head.

What a weird kid.

She spent longer than she thought she would thinking about it, and finally she turned the TV on as she'd intended. Hunter didn't deserve the thought she was giving her - just another hooligan that got caught and had to pay the price, and she'd vanish into the city with all the other hooligans when released.

And yet...


	2. Be My Friend God Damn It - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunter's sure she's got her pegged, but why is this still so hard to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set before they were infected.

Hunter was quick to consult with her friends after her visit with the old smoking lady, and upon hearing her story, they were quick to call her an idiot for being stupid enough to a) get caught and b) give up her information once she had. She expected them to do that, so no surprises there. Her motivation - not getting arrested - didn't seem to change their opinion much (except Jordan who was notably more understanding on that point, since he was very careful about avoiding the police, knowing that they'd be less than likely to give him the benefit of the doubt given his skin color), and she expected that too.

They were also quick to write off Smoker as a huge bitch, in support, and spent some time talking up a variety of negative and pathetic personal attributes that Smoker may or may not have had, in an attempt to make her feel better and show some solidarity for her predicament. That too Hunter expected, although this time something was... different. Normally, when one of them got into some kind of trouble, everyone was quick to support them against whoever it was they'd wronged or been wronged by, usually by insulting whoever it was that was causing them problems. They did this all the time, and Hunter gladly participated, and was glad for their support when something happened to her, and she'd never given it much thought before.

This time though, there was something about the situation that didn't... feel the same. When Ray put on a raspy voice to do imitations of Smoker, when David assured her that the whole situation was totally unfair, when Jordan speculated on just what a sad and pathetic life a woman like that had to have to be all alone, she didn't feel much better. It just made her feel... a little bad for her. True, she was an ugly old lady who smoked too much, as her friends were quite happy to mine for material, and maybe it was just because she had a better idea of how much Smoker's life sucked now and that could have explained a lot, but... Smoker didn't seem completely evil.

Sure, she talked funny, and was smug and condescending, and she kept blowing smoke in her face like she didn't know how dangerous that was, and she looked at her like she was better than her which was just infuriating, but when she'd managed to get her to reply to her teasing, there was something else there. Underneath all that, there was someone who did have a sense of humor, somewhere. Someone who would tease her back, like her friends did, and she almost would have said it was in a friendly way had the circumstances been different. And that meant something, although she wasn't entirely sure what just yet.

Jordan talked about how lonely that lady must be, all by herself. Maybe he was right. There was a moment, their last discussion, where she felt like... they'd connected, a little. When she saw her smile, look relaxed for a few seconds, she didn't seem like a huge bitch who was blackmailing her for money or anything like that. She was just... a person, someone that for a brief moment had clicked with her. It wasn't perfect, her comebacks not as clever as she would have liked, but they'd gone back and forth a little and it didn't feel hard, and that was something.

She wasn't sure why Smoker had kicked her out afterwards, except that maybe she had a niceness quota she'd fulfilled or something, but that wasn't enough to dissuade her from trying again. She was going to have to talk to her anyway while she paid her back the money, and that brief moment was enough to intrigue her. Why not at least try to get something out of it?

She'd teased the old lady, and got her to tease her back instead of calling the cops or yelling at her, and she'd gotten her to smile in spite of how miserable she seemed to be all the time. And if her life was as sad and empty as Jordan was sure it was, then she probably wanted someone to come into it. Maybe this did mean something, like he said.

It was worth a shot, at least.

She tried to keep that in mind while she began scraping together what she could afford for her first payment, but it wasn't easy. Every time she went to the store and had to hold back on buying some candy or soda, her pity for her would easily turn back into resentment. She really wanted that candy, but noooo, she had to give her money to _her_. And it wasn't like she had a lot of disposable income to begin with, and although her friends and her parents were more than happy to provide a safety net should something happen that would clean her out entirely, she didn't like asking them for help.

But she didn't really have a choice. She said she'd pay her back, and Smoker still had her iPod. She got together fifty dollars, and she hung onto it for a day, debating whether or not she should really go back and give it to the old lady after all, but in the end she decided she should.

She tried to remind herself of the friend angle, rather than the extortionist one. It was hard to get one side to overcome the other though, and she wasn't really used to dealing with mixed feelings.

Well, maybe it'd be easier when she was with her again. She hadn't really been trying the last time they'd clicked, after all. She dropped down on her fire escape, not wanting to deal with getting buzzed through the front again, and it looked like Smoker had finally gotten her window fixed after all. She couldn't resist taking a peek inside before announcing her presence.

Smoker was standing at her stove, cigarette hanging from her lips as usual, with her dingy and scraggly hair tied back in a ponytail. The sleeves of her shabby old plaid shirt were rolled up, revealing thin and pale arms. She could practically see all the bones that made up her wrists, which was so creepy. She'd never really spent much time looking at people that were so skinny.

She was cooking something, which gave Hunter pause for a few moments. Given that Smoker looked like she hadn't eaten more than a grain of rice over the past few days, why would she be cooking anything? And she didn't exactly look like the kind of person that'd know how. She looked more like a TV dinner type of person, snorting and putting out cigarettes in her beer cans while scratching herself, something like that.

Although now that she was looking at it again, Smoker's apartment was actually a lot cleaner than she remembered it being. She'd told her friends that it was a huge mess, which fit perfectly with the general portrait of her Hunter'd painted for them, but at the moment, everything seemed fairly organized. With the way she dressed and how she smoked, there was no way that she'd care about keeping her place clean. Someone that butch wouldn't give a shit about something like that.

And yet, her kitchen was mostly clean now. The table did have some newspapers scattered on it though. Hmm. Smoker flipped whatever it was she was making in the pan, a flick of her wrist that Hunter was a little surprised she could make, given she had spaghetti noodles for arms. It looked like she was making some kind of fish, maybe, and Hunter felt a twinge of hunger at the thought. She'd skimped on lunch today to try and save a few bucks...

Smoker set the pan back down, pulled the cigarette from her mouth to breath a brief cloud of smoke into the air, and abruptly turned to face the window. Presumably she was going to go get something, but instead she nearly jumped five feet in the air, dropping her cigarette and making a startled sound that Hunter could hear through the glass.

Hunter couldn't help herself - she started laughing, which didn't really improve the old lady's mood any. She was obviously pissed at being scared by her, and she stomped over to the window, clearly in a foul mood.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she snapped when she opened it. "How long you been watchin' me like a creep? Why can't you use a door like a normal person?"

"I didn't mean to startle you, grandma." Hunter was still giggling a little, and she began to crawl inside. Smoker hadn't invited her, but she assumed she was coming in anyway, and when Smoker didn't move out of the way as much as she could have, Hunter pushed her lightly to one side to get through. "I was only there for like, a minute."

"Make yourself at home, by the way," she said, clearly still angry at her, although she didn't do too much to stop her from getting in. "I didn't invite you inside."

"I know." Hunter brushed herself off, sticking her hands in her pouch and giving the old lady a smile she knew would be infuriating. She was right, as her frown only deepened, and she glared back at her. The part of Hunter that resented her for making her pay her back was at least satisfied. "But you want the money, don't you?"

"Just put it on the table and get out. I don't want creepers in my house." Smoker turned away from her, then remembered about her fallen cigarette and picked it up off the floor. She turned back to her food. "Ugh, I can't believe you were watching me, I didn't think you could get any worse."

"Whatcha making?" Hunter ignored her comment, correctly believing that'd be the best way to get back at her for it, and walked over to her to get a better look at what was in the pan. Smoker made a questioning noise, then stuck her elbow out to stop her from getting any closer. Hunter blinked, confused. "What?"

"Get away from me, I don't want you touchin' me," Smoker said, giving her a suspicious and still resentful stare. "Just stand over there."

"I want to see what you're making." That wasn't a crime, and Hunter wasn't so easily dissuaded. When Smoker let her elbow fall back down, apparently believing that Hunter had gotten the point, she slid up close to her again, trying to move her head around her to get a better look at what she was doing. It was weird, Smoker gave off almost no body heat. She could practically feel her own rebounding off her.

"Why do you care, you're not gettin' any of it. Get away from me!" Smoker turned to face her more directly this time, pushing her away with a little more force. "What did I just say?"

"I wasn't even close to you!" Hunter said, giving her a confused frown. She tilted her head. God, what was her problem? Being alone for so long had really messed her up. "Jeez, someone's a little sensitive."

"Someone's never heard of personal space." Smoker turned away from her again, trying to put her back between Hunter and the food. A challenge, eh? In seconds Hunter was back behind her again, an inch away as she tried to peer around her. She lost her balance for a moment as she tried to stand on tiptoes to look over her shoulder, and she rested her hands on Smoker's hips to catch herself, and when she touched her she could have sworn that she'd electrocuted her by how sharply Smoker jolted. She'd only touched her for a second, but Smoker whirled around anyway, waving an arm frantically like she was a gnat or something flying too close to her face. Hunter ducked her efforts to drive her off easily. "Oh my god, stop getting so close to me! What is wrong with you?"

"I'm not even that close to you! Stop being such a baby." God, she was so weird. What was her deal? Smoker turned away from her again, back to what she was doing, and Hunter resumed her curious quest, hovering an inch behind her. "Is that tuna?"

"It's not for you, that's what it is- stop it!" Smoker banged the pan down a bit harder than she would have liked, guessing by the frustrated grunt she made afterwards, and turned again to face her. "Stop touching me! How many more times do I have to say it? What's wrong with you!"

"I'm not touching you!" And she wasn't, she was just close to her so she could see what she was doing, and frankly she had no idea why she was acting so weird about it. How else was she supposed to see? "I just want to see what you're making."

"You're not getting any, so I don't know why you're interested." Smoker scowled at her. "It's not for you."

"I'm just amazed you're making food, I thought you didn't eat at all. Since you're so skinny." She winced inwardly at the lameness of her comment. _Way to explain it right after you say it, Hunter._

Smoker crossed her arms, glaring at her. "It's none of your goddamn business. Get out of my face, you're practically breathing my air. I thought you didn't like the secondhand smoke thing anyway."

Smoker didn't really seem to be much in the mood for teasing. Or at least, not as much as she had been the last time she'd been here, and Hunter had no idea why. Why wasn't she responding? Maybe she'd been wrong about her?

"I don't, I was just wondering." Hunter looked away, now frowning herself, and a little disappointed. This wasn't working out at all like she'd pictured in her head. She just seemed to be making her angrier, and not in a fun teasing way. She took a few steps away, like she wanted, and Smoker visibly relaxed a little. Hunter wasn't sure why that made such a big difference to her, but whatever. "Just thought since we'd be seeing each other a lot we might as well talk a little, you know."

"All I want from you is your money, and then I'd be happy to never see your mug again." Smoker turned back to her food, still somewhat irritated, although she did seem more at ease now that Hunter had backed off a little. "Not like I got enough stupid bullshit in my life without you makin' it worse."

Another hint, intentional or not, that she wasn't happy, and that made her think about what Jordan had said. And although it was hard, at the moment, to feel bad for her instead of frustrated and annoyed, she tried. Hunter sat down at the table, giving her a little more space. "I'm not tryin' to make it worse, you know. I just think it'd be dumb if we didn't like each other for no reason."

"Tch." Smoker waved a hand, and there was a slight pause. There was an edge to her voice now, something a little different from her previous tone. "You've given me plenty of reasons so far, kid."

What a bitch! And here Hunter had been trying to be nice to her! She went over possible retorts in her head, and then she hesitated. There was something in her voice, something different that she hadn't been paying attention to in favor of the words. With her looking away from her like that, it was hard to get a better read without her face, but...

They'd teased each other last time she was here, and her friends had ragged on her much more harshly than that before and she'd always rolled with it, and while what she'd said still stung her by virtue of it coming from someone she didn't know nearly as well, maybe Smoker hadn't meant it. Not really.

Maybe she needed to approach this like that.

"Well, that is my specialty." Casually, like she didn't care at all about what Smoker had said, and she noticed her pause in what she was doing. Smoker hadn't expected that response. "That and breaking crabby old lady's windows."

"I know about that one already," she said, a bit shortly. She huffed out a small cloud of smoke.

"And paying them back for the windows, that too." Hunter dug into her pouch, searching for the money she'd saved. She reluctantly put it on the table. "Although I only got about fifty dollars this time..."

Smoker moved the pan from one burner to the other, turned a dial, and then she turned to face her. She looked... a little puzzled, which was a step in the right direction. She walked over to the table and inspected the money, like she thought it was fake, giving Hunter suspicious looks the entire time.

"I told you I'd do it." Hunter leaned back in her chair, balancing it on two legs.

"Well I'll be, you actually did raise some of it," Smoker said, and it was obvious that it was reluctantly. "Guess you're not completely untrustworthy after all."

"Oh come on, what promises have I broken to you so far? Name one." Hunter held up a finger. "Go ahead, name one. Or even a lie."

Smoker stared at her, trying to think of one as directed, but she was tellingly at a loss. Eventually, she headed back to the stove with an annoyed "feh" noise, dismissing the claim. Ha, got her there. Old lady wasn't so smart.

"You always so grouchy?" Hunter asked, since she was curious and it wasn't like they were pretending to be polite.

"Yes," Smoker said, in a way that seemed determined to confirm that as true, and she pulled down a plate from a cupboard. She went to sit at the table with her food, still eyeing Hunter suspiciously, and she sat at the opposite side. Hunter briefly wondered if she could swipe the fish from her after all... she was still kind of hungry. "You always so nosy?"

"Yes." Hunter leaned back and forth in her chair, smiling at her in spite of the frown she got in response. This was much better when she could tweak her instead of be tweaked by her. "Don't know if I can compete with your nose though."

"Like I haven't heard that one before." Smoker rolled her eyes, and she took a bite of her food. "Why are you still here?"

"I dunno." Hunter folded her arms behind her head. "We're gonna be seein' a lot of each other, so I just wanted to know more about you."

Smoker gave her a heavy-lidded stare, that "you're a complete idiot and I can't believe I have to talk to you" look she'd seen on her before, and didn't say anything. Like her disapproving silence was enough.

Hunter didn't like it when she stared at her like that... like Smoker thought she was better than her, and she hated that. She wasn't better than her, no one was. And the easiest way to cut down someone who thought they were better than you was to find some way to make fun of them.

"Want to know what I know so far?" Hunter said, still smiling although there was a bit more of an edge to it now.

"No." Smoker turned to her food, still sullen and quiet.

"You smell bad." Hunter raised a finger, and her grin widened when Smoker looked back up at her, giving her what might have been... yes, she was pretty sure that was an affronted look. So she could get through her cool exterior after all. "You don't exercise, you don't take care of yourself, and you don't have any friends. Right?" She didn't wait for Smoker to respond, caught up in the moment, and it was too easy to let her more resentful side take over. She'd been wanting to say this to her since the beginning and now she finally had her chance. "You think you're smarter than everyone else, you're judgmental and smug and mean, you don't care about anyone but yourself and you talk funny 'cause you think it makes you special."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she'd fucked up. She was digging too deep and too harshly, particularly since they didn't know even really know each other that well, but once she got started apparently it was more difficult than she thought to stop. That wasn't what she'd meant to do at all. Stupid!

She stared at Smoker, trying to gauge her reaction, which had shifted gradually as she spoke. At first, Smoker had looked almost offended by her first comment, surprised perhaps, but then as she kept going, her emotional reaction... vanished. Her eyes half-closed again, like she was bored of her and what she was saying, like she didn't care, and she turned back to her food. Like Hunter hadn't been talking at all, and she kept eating when she was done, like she wasn't listening.

Like she'd heard it before, and at that thought Hunter felt completely awful. Why was she so bad at this? This was the exact opposite of what she wanted to do; she wanted to help her, not make her feel worse.

"You done?" Smoker said, quietly, after a few moments. She kept her eyes on her food, chewing slowly. "That all you've got?"

Smoker hadn't been exactly receptive to her before, but now she got a distinctly chilly feeling from her. When she'd been complaining about her landlord before, she'd spoken to Hunter like it was Us against Them, but now the general shift in her tone and expression made it clear that now Hunter was one of Them, another enemy for Smoker to shut out entirely. God, her friends would have a field day with how badly she'd botched this. They told her she'd never pull this off. She had to think of some way to fix this.

"But, uh..." Hunter sat back down in the chair properly, landing it back on all four legs. "I'm... well, I don't really know any of that for sure, you know?" There might be something to that, if she kept going with it. "I'm... I'm probably wrong, since I don't really know you at all yet, so that's why... we should actually get to know each other, so we won't... think wrong stuff, like that... you know..." _UGH WHY WAS THIS SO HARD_

Smoker was looking at her, dispassionate and cold, like another stranger that had walked into her life and ruined it, and Hunter didn't want to be another person like that, she really didn't.

"I mean... I don't really know you at all, really, we just... sort of talked so I'm probably... I don't really know you, but I want to, 'cause... there's got to be more to it than that, right? You know?" Trying valiantly to fix her mistake, and Smoker was not giving her an inch. She just kept staring at her.

A hideously awkward silence followed, where she stared at her until Hunter couldn't match her gaze, and she stared at the table, feeling chagrined and she was not familiar with that at all. She'd never felt bad about this kind of thing before.

"No need," Smoker eventually said. "You're right, that's all you need to know, isn't it?" Obviously rhetorical, and her voice was even. "I got your money, so just scram already."

"I don't want to," Hunter said, without thinking about it, and Smoker sighed, long-suffering. "I want to... I want to know more about you."

"You already know what you want to know." Smoker took another bite of her food. "You don't got to pretend."

"I'm not pretending," Hunter said, and then it occurred to her that maybe she hadn't been speaking as clearly as she might have, and although it galled her somewhere deep inside to ever say something like this, this would be the time and occasion for it. "I'm... look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, it came out too harsh, I just... I don't know, I mean, I want to talk to you but it's, like... it's hard, I dunno. I just say stuff sometimes."

"Mm." The barest of acknowledgments, and Hunter wanted desperately to fix this, but also felt a tinge of resentment that Smoker was making this so hard. She even said she was sorry! What more did she want from her?

"I... I know, why don't you do me?" Hunter leaned forward across the table. "Tell me what you know about me already, then we'll be even, okay?"

Smoker didn't look up. "I don't care."

"C'mon, you gotta know something about me by now. Go ahead, tell me!"

"I don't want to know anything about you. I don't care." Smoker's expression changed finally, a frown flickering across her face for a moment, although she went back to her neutral expression soon afterwards. "All I want is your money. I don't want your..." She was going to say something, but changed her mind at the last moment. "Just get outta here."

"No way." Hunter stood up, leaning forward on her hands across the table. Smoker's obstinance was beginning to get her frustrated, which was overriding her regret and probably her better judgment, and she wanted her to like her. She wanted that, and she was going to do that or die trying. "I'm not leaving with you still hatin' me."

"Too bad." Smoker stared at a bit of fish on her fork. "Don't really see any other way this'll go."

"Okay, okay then, you know... you know what else I know about you?" Hunter scrambled desperately for something, anything she could say to rebridge the gap between them.

"You haven't called me a bitch yet," Smoker said, taking a bite. "You could do that."

And Hunter felt a pang of guilt; she had _thought_ that, after all. But she wasn't going to let that stop her.

"I know you're funny."

A pause, and Smoker raised an eyebrow. After a few moments, she ventured, "What, looking?"

"No, funny-funny. I know you got a sense of humor," Hunter said, determined not to let this chance go. Smoker was staring at her now, her eyebrow still raised. "Last time, you and me, we were talking and you made jokes, and they were smart and went with mine, and you're funny, and you're smart, so I know that."

Smoker shook her head, like Hunter was an idiot again, but her face told a different story. Discomfited, unprepared... Hunter had caught her off-guard, and she didn't know how to respond. That was encouraging, so Hunter charged forward.

"And I know you're determined, 'cause you got all these people makin' stuff hard for you, and you don't let 'em stop you. And you're strong, 'cause people are always causing trouble for you but you don't let 'em get away with it. Even me."

"Knock it off," Smoker mumbled, and she looked more uncomfortable now, which was better than the cold front she'd been giving her before, and she got up to put her dish in the sink.

"So I want to, I want to know you. I want to know more about you, so we should... we should talk to each other." Hunter wasn't sure how to finish her thought, or her plan, so settled for that. Smoker set her dish down, and she stood there for a few moments, her back to her. Then she turned to face her, and she still looked somewhat confused.

"I don't get you, kid," Smoker said. "Why do you care? Don't you have other friends to play with?"

And when asked, Hunter wasn't sure she could think of a good reason why, aside from the fact she wanted to joke with her like she had before and she felt kind of sorry for her, and at a loss for a good response, she tried to find a way around it. She looked away from her, holding onto her arm with one hand.

"I dunno... just seems dumb if we had to do this and we hated each other..." Hunter mumbled. "I think we could like each other if we tried... it'd be easier, wouldn't it? Since we gotta see each other no matter what."

Smoker stared at her for a few moments more, and she shook her head, somewhat disbelieving.

"You're one mixed up kid, you know that? I can't figure out what's going on in that noodle of yours."

There was a warmth to her voice whenever she used those old weird words... a smile when she said them, a joy at finding a place for them. This was a possible rescue line to an easier avenue of conversation, and Hunter was eager to take it.

"Maybe." Hunter tried to smile at her. "But I can't figure a weirdo like you out either, so we're even, right?"

Smoker looked at her coolly. "Sounded like you had it all figured out a second ago."

"Oh cmon, you didn't really believe that, did you?" Trying so hard to get that cold look out of her eyes. "I was just messing with you. You're real easy to mess with, you know that?"

"Hmmph." A moment, and then Smoker tilted her head back towards her, and the corners of her mouth quirked upwards, just a little, and Hunter felt a jolt of surprise. She did it, she was smiling! "I wasn't the one fallin' all over myself to apologize a second ago. You're real bad at that, by the way."

She made her smile, and that was all that mattered to her at the moment, and Hunter returned it with gusto. "Nuh uh, you bought it, didn't you?"

"Not that gullible." Smoker crossed her arms, but she was still almost-smiling, and her eyes had softened. "But I got to say, you might be the first little pest to actually try. Even if you're real bad at it."

"That's like the saddest thing I ever heard." And she said it in a lighthearted manner, but actually the more she thought about it, the more depressing it got. No wonder Smoker had seemed confused when she'd backtracked - once people shut her out, she shut them out and that was that.

"Not as sad as you tryin' to cover up what you said." Smoker waved a hand at the door. "You goin' to hang around here all night?"

"Why, you want me to?"

"No, I have work tomorrow, and my threshold for annoying pests was passed a long time ago." Smoker picked up the money from the table, pocketing it just to make sure. "So skedaddle already."

"I'll be back soon with some more." Hunter took a few steps towards the window, looking back to see how Smoker was reacting. She watched her go, but made no move to stop her. "Okay?"

"Yeah, that's the arrangement." Smoker put her hands in her pockets, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, then..." She opened the window and stepped outside. "Bye," she said, unable to think of any less awkward way to end their encounter, and after a few self-conscious seconds where she struggled to think of what else to say, she shut the window behind her and darted off.

Well, that could have gone a lot better.

\---

Smoker didn't know why she put up with this. She should have told her to just come back with all the money at once, just to cut down their increasingly awkward and stupid encounters, but it was too late now. She only realized later that night when she was in bed that she hadn't even shown Hunter the invoice and given her a solid number, although to be fair, Hunter hadn't even asked. She probably assumed correctly that the fifty dollars she brought wouldn't be able to cover it.

She spent a lot of that night thinking about Hunter, actually. More than the kid deserved, frankly, which was annoying.

She couldn't figure her out. Every time she thought she had her pegged, she'd do something stupid or nonsensical and knock her for a loop again. Whenever she'd write her off as an unbearably obnoxious nuisance, she'd do or say something that'd make her think that maybe she wasn't a total lost cause, and then whenever she'd feel just the slightest bit kindly towards her, she'd open her fat mouth and say something idiotic and make her angry all over again. She wished the kid would just decide if she hated her or liked her already so they could just get this over with.

She could actually guess at her motivation for wanting to be friends... there was that girl at work who was much the same way, and Smoker had heard that story before. Poor lonely Smoker, longing for some kind and charitable soul to save her from herself. Waiting for someone to come and fix her, to show her what she really wanted since no one could ever just want to be alone all the time. No, something always had to be wrong, she always needed the help of those magnanimous white knights who were eager to swoop in and save her from a life of pathetic loneliness. And once she accepted the generous gift of their magical, perfect presence, she'd realize that that was what she'd wanted all along, and become normal like everyone else.

It was almost amusing, in a way, how predictable Hunter had been in that department. People either assumed she deserved to be alone, or resolved to fix it for her, and somehow almost no one seemed to ever fall between those extremes. She didn't know why it was so hard for people to think outside themselves for two seconds.

Like Hunter, for example, who rambled off a long laundry list of faults, grinning like it was a great joke. She didn't even know the girl! And it wasn't like she didn't get enough of that already from people who _weren't_ trying to be friends with her. It was shocking, in a way, how incredibly poor Hunter's social skills really were.

Maybe it was ironic that so many people who claimed to be more socially adjusted than her had no idea how to behave appropriately. Hunter, for example, couldn't friend her way out of a paper bag. Watching her flail about trying to do so was kind of amusing, at least.

When it wasn't annoying, or tiring. Which it often was.

She wasn't sure how long it'd take Hunter to get tired of trying to save her. That girl at work still kept trying, and it'd been months. Maybe she'd keep trying all the way through the payments, which was an exhausting thought. She probably wouldn't knock it off if asked, either.

On the other hand... Hunter had said something last time that did catch her attention. She was right about one thing... they had joked around a little that one time, and that hadn't been so bad. For those few moments, Smoker let herself try and be lighthearted, and Hunter had played along with her, and it had been surprisingly easy. She hadn't even thought about it while she was doing it... it just happened. Most of the time she guarded against that kind of thing... people didn't get her sense of humor, or the slang she liked, and she didn't want to deal with it. Ninety percent of the time, it just wasn't worth it even to try.

And then, without thinking about it, it just sort of... happened. And it hadn't been so bad, really. They bounced off each other pretty well... better than she had with someone for a while, and that was different.

While Hunter may have just wanted to be her Great Friendship Savior to feel better about herself as a person, they did have something like a connection for little while. So maybe she actually might have been on to something.

But then she had to go and ruin it, first by watching her like a creep, then getting in her personal space like an even bigger creep (it actually had reminded her rather unpleasantly of how Griffin just felt entitled to encroach on her personal space, and why did people just _do_ that? What the hell?), and then she just flat out insulted her to her face. And she might have let it go, if she didn't think that Hunter believed what she was saying.

God, it pissed her off how Hunter was mad at her for this. Hunter was the one who broke her window! Hunter was the one at fault here! Smoker had actually been nice to her, had given her this chance instead of sent her to the cops, and Hunter had the audacity to be mad at her for it! It just... ugh. Why were some people so selfish.

She was going to see her again, there was no way around that, and even though Smoker gave the matter more thought than it deserved, she couldn't exactly come to a resolution. She didn't want a new friend; she was quite happy with her social life or lack thereof as it was, and she didn't need Hunter to come and "save" her from it. She was so tired of people pitying her or doing her favors by deigning to associate with her. And she especially was not in the market for an obnoxious little brat of a kid for a friend.

On the other hand, she and Hunter had had a bit of a repartee going that one time, and that was sort of... fun, almost, and surprisingly easy, and that was... well, that might be worth looking into. Maybe. Or at least, not dismissing outright. Even if some aspects of their personalities seemed to clash, there was obviously some other aspect that clicked, if that conversation was any indication. Unless she was reading too much into it.

Either way, she and Hunter were going to have to deal with each other for a while, and she kept thinking about what she'd said... that if they had to do this, they might as well like each other.

It was annoying how much she was thinking about her. She just couldn't classify her one way or another, and she didn't like that. Not being sure how to feel about her was... weird.

She was sitting on her couch, watching TV, when she heard a faint tapping. At first she thought maybe she was imagining it, but then sure enough...

"Hello?"

Smoker sighed and got up. There was Hunter, staring in through the window with those big gold eyes. God, she was never going to get used to seeing her there. What was her problem? She had a door. Maybe Hunter just had a weird thing with windows, thus why she'd broken the last one. She still didn't know why Hunter had done that in the first place.

She opened it, reluctantly, and without invitation, Hunter began climbing inside again. Goddamn it, what was wrong with people today? You don't just climb in someone's house without permission, but no, Hunter didn't care.

"I have a door," Smoker said, and she was sure it'd be futile. Hunter stood up, brushing herself off, and she gave her that annoying smile again. All too familiar and friendly and haha aren't we best pals, and it was completely uncalled for. And she probably knew she was doing it too. Little brat.

"This is easier," Hunter said, brightly. She probably didn't even remember what had happened last time. "I got another fifty bucks for you."

"Fine. I didn't show you the invoice last time... let me go get it."

"How much is it?"

Smoker unpinned it from the fridge. "Here."

Hunter looked at it, and she hissed through her teeth. "Shit, I thought maybe it'd be less."

"They said about three hundred. Pretty close." Smoker shrugged.

Hunter sighed. Smoker took the paper back from her and then, since it didn't really have anywhere else to be, pinned it back to the fridge.

"You can leave it on the table and get out," Smoker said, perhaps a bit more shortly than she should have, but it was too late to fix it now. And besides, if the kid really wanted to be friends with her like she claimed, then she'd have to get used to that kind of thing. Smoker was not going to reach her halfway. If she wanted to martyr herself on Smoker's doorstep in an effort to warm her frozen heart, she wasn't about to help her do it.

"What, so soon? Expecting company?" With a teasing grin. God, what gave her the idea that she could get away with doing that to her? They barely knew each other and frankly, Hunter was still on her shitlist for the window which she still didn't even seem that sorry about breaking. She was so selfish and self-centered it was almost unbelievable.

"Better company than you," she said, while trying to think of a proper rejoinder. It came to mind when she raised her cigarette back to her lips. "Maybe you heard of him. Name's Marlboro." And she readied herself to blow smoke in her face again, but apparently Hunter anticipated her doing that, as she darted around behind her, out of the way. Brat. She let out the smoke casually while turning, like she'd intended to do that all along.

"Bet I can do you better than him." Which was an odd way to phrase that, and considering who she was talking about, that was saying a lot. She didn't have much time to think about it though, as Hunter kept going, all cat grins and smug looks. "I won't kill you."

"Huh! Don't make promises you can't keep." Smoker huffed.

"Well, not yet, anyway." Hunter tilted her head at her. "But I'm definitely better for your health."

"That's up for debate." She put her hands in her pockets, and it occurred to her that they were doing it again, without even thinking about it. She'd been wondering how it had started last time, how their mismatched gears finally fell in line, tried to pin down the exact moment and couldn't, and now without even trying, they'd done it again. God, that was weird. Almost unsettling that it just... happened, without thinking about it. A bit out of sorts, she looked away, balling her fists inside her pockets. She wasn't sure if she liked how easily that happened... it was a little disconcerting that she hadn't even noticed. People didn't do that to her.

"You _still_ want to be 'friends'?" She wasn't sure how much more obvious she could make her distaste for the idea. _I know what you're up to. You're not fooling anyone._

"Yup." Hunter kept smiling back at her. So clueless. "If only to make you crazy."

And then she said stuff like that. What was that supposed to mean? Smoker looked away.

"Whatever."

A somewhat awkward pause, Hunter waiting for Smoker to give her more to go on, and Smoker refusing. And then...

"Were you watching something?"

She shrugged again. "I guess." Then, not feeling terribly motivated to continue the conversation on her own, she went back to the couch and sat down, making a point of not looking to see if Hunter followed her. Kid could go or leave for all she cared.

She sat there, a can of Diet Coke in one hand and her cigarette in the other, staring at the television and doing her best to pretend that the girl had already left and she didn't have to think about her anymore. Unfortunately, Hunter was determined to ruin the rest of her evening, and it didn't take long at all before she followed her, leaning across the back of the couch near her in a place where Smoker couldn't help but notice.

Well, she didn't have to act like she did. She ignored her, trying to focus on the television without success, and then she noticed that Hunter was staring at her. She waited a few moments, to see if it was just a glance, but no, she was full on staring at her. As for why, she had no idea. As annoying as the kid was, she hadn't pulled out the "ugly" guns for her little snide comments. Not that she'd ever tell her that she appreciated that, of course.

When she noticed her doing it, it became that much harder to ignore. People always talked about feeling people's eyes on them, and now she had a much better idea of what that meant. Finally, she had enough, and she turned her head to look at her. With her hood up, Hunter really reminded her of a cat. She'd have to make a note to mock her about that.

"Yes?" Annoyed.

"So are you gay or what?"

Smoker rolled her eyes. Didn't take very long for that to come up, as usual. "No, I'm not gay, kid." With a sigh, and Hunter propped herself up on one hand.

"Really?"

"Yeah." With her best unamused stare. Hunter didn't seem that impressed, still grinning at her in that annoying playful kind of way.

"So are you the most boring person alive then or what? Is this what you do all day?"

Did this kid not know how to talk to her without insulting her? If this was how she intended to win her friendship, this was the worst attempt she had ever seen. Well if she wanted to be a smartass then fine, Smoker could do the same.

"And what do you do, fall in windows and chase mice?" And she got a bit of a bristle at that, just the reaction she'd been looking for. "Haven't I seen you on a Lost Cat poster?"

Frowning at her now. Cat teasing seemed to work pretty well, which was weird since she so obviously liked them. Whatever, kid was bizarre, another fact she could file away about her and use later.

"So wait, you've actually been outside?" And she was back in the game again after her misstep, another volley her way. "And you didn't turn to dust?"

"Smartass," she grumbled, since she couldn't quite think of a retort as quickly as she'd hoped, and sure enough, Hunter grinned widely at her, thrilled at her apparent victory. "Should'a turned you in in the first place, stray cats aren't supposed to wander around without a collar."

Not a direct comeback to Hunter's comment, but still, a turn against her, and the affronted look she got was confirmation that she'd hit the mark. Hunter didn't have an immediate response to that either, so in Smoker's mind things were even now. Not as clever as she thought she was now, eh?

Although again, it occurred to her that their verbal sparring just... happened. So often she just checked out of conversations, or carefully weighed the benefits of participating in one, and yet...

"So what _do_ you do here all day?" Hunter oozed over the couch, eventually winding up on her back beside her, her legs propped up near Smoker's shoulders. Hunter stared at her, her hands on her stomach, without that smug teasing air that rubbed Smoker the wrong way. Now she seemed genuinely curious, and Smoker realized that actually wasn't much better. She still didn't care for her attitude. All this kid did was get on her nerves.

"Stuff," Smoker said, deciding that Hunter was going to have to work for a conversation.

"What kinda stuff?" Apparently not annoyed by her lack of a response. Smoker shrugged noncommittally. "You make meth?"

She blinked at that, startled, and Hunter laughed. Damn it, the kid got her again. She frowned, wondering whether or not she'd let her get away with tapping her ashes out on her.

"Loads of it," she said, casually, and that got a blink from Hunter in response. Ha, at least she was getting her back most of the time. "All out at the moment though."

"Gotta stay up for your late night smoking-and-watching-TV binges, huh?" Hunter seemed amused, actually, by her comment, instead of annoyed, and oddly that made her feel... sort of accomplished. Like telling a good joke, although Smoker rarely bothered. Most people didn't get her sense of humor anyway, or didn't like it. "What else you do?"

Smoker gestured to the bookshelves lining the wall, and Hunter followed her hand. "There's a clue for you."

"Do you ever go outside?"

"Can't." Smoker closed her eyes and leaned her head back, breathing smoke to the ceiling. "Turn to dust."

Hunter laughed at that, not mocking or smug, but like she was laughing at her attempt at a joke, and it had been a long time since someone had done that. And it wasn't even that good. Every time she thought she had her figured out... how did she keep doing that?

"Okay, then what do you do for work? Where do you work?" Despite every sign that Smoker was giving off that she didn't want to talk to her, Hunter seemed determined to keep trying. If nothing else, the kid was stubborn. Smoker rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Ugh. Next question."

"What, is it a secret?"

"It's a pain in the ass. I don't want to talk about it."

"So there are things you DO want to talk about?" Hunter was still smiling at her, apparently enjoying how irritating she was being. She had an annoying talent for picking out ways to continue the conversation, even when Smoker was trying her best to end it.

She thought about a smart response, then thought that would be too encouraging, so instead she just shrugged. In retrospect, that actually probably just encouraged her further, since that wasn't a set in stone answer, even if it was silent and ostensibly gave her nothing to go on.

She was briefly curious about what Hunter did for a living, but reminded herself that she did not care about her whatsoever, and thus had no reason to ask her.

"Okay, so you're a secret agent for the government or something. Neat." Hunter still staring at her, all saucer-eyed and god she was so annoying, why couldn't she take a hint. "You got any friends?"

"No," Smoker said flatly, since frankly she wasn't sure why people thought that was a bad thing.

"What about family?"

She took a drag. "Next question."

"Aww, come on! That's not even that hard." She could feel Hunter kicking her legs against the back of the couch. "I mean if you're a CIA agent then that's fine, but there's no reason you can't talk about your family."

She stared at her, trying to dissuade her from pursuing the topic further, and Hunter seemed resolute. Damn stubborn. She breathed out another cloud of smoke before realizing she could have blown it in her face. Well, maybe for the next drag. Although, that did give her an idea.

"I was raised by a pack of cigarettes." There, maybe that'd get her off her back.

"I could believe it." Hunter smiled at her fondly, which was enough to almost get her to double take. What the hell kind of response was that to what she said? How was she so clueless? Smoker was sending out practically every signal possible for her to get out aside from flat out saying it, and yet here she was giving her goofy looks like she liked it. Was she a masochist or something?

"Family reunions are interesting." No reason to drop the excuse, and Hunter laughed a little, and she was somewhat conflicted between satisfaction that she got her to do that again, and wondering why she was still here and even doing this.

"Okay, so you don't want to talk about your family, or your work, and you don't do anything around your house..." Hunter ticked them off on her fingers. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Nothing with you." Smoker took a drink from her soda. "Frankly I'm surprised you haven't picked up on that yet, kid."

"But you haven't kicked me out yet." Hunter didn't seem fazed by her comment. "So you must not hate me that much, huh?"

"You'd be surprised." Not that she despised her or anything, but she was incredibly frustrating, and it was an easy response. Like she thought, Hunter didn't take her comment seriously. "A momentary lapse in judgment."

"Momentary, huh? So then say it, go ahead."

"What, get out?"

"Yeah."

Was that a challenge? Then fine. "Fine, get out. I'm tired of looking at you."

"Nope." Cheerily, and Smoker frowned at her in response. She didn't really expect her to go when asked, but still that was an awfully flippant way of responding to her. "What are you watching?"

Smoker shrugged. There was a pause, as Hunter tried to think of something to say, although she was still smiling. Like a Cheshire cat, she'd have to bring that up to her at some point. Smoker turned her attention back to the TV, hoping she'd get the hint. She had no idea how someone could be so oblivious.

"You're weird," Hunter said, without any malice at all and in a way that didn't make it sound like an insult, somehow.

"You're annoying." Quickly in response, and not in the same tone. Or so she assumed.

"Don't you get bored?"

"Nope. I got people kicking in my windows every day, how could I be bored?"

"Is that an invitation to do it again?"

"Kick 'em all out if you want, as long as you pay me back for all of them." She waved a hand. "Whatever gets you off."

"Shit, you figured it out." Hunter was still giving her that look, that look like she liked her, and Smoker couldn't figure out why since she wasn't making this easy for her, that was for sure. She didn't get her. "This show sucks."

She considered saying that Hunter's face sucked, but then when she gave the matter more thought, Hunter was right. She hadn't really been paying attention to it when Hunter had come in to distract her.

So she shrugged. "Yeah, sort of." A moment. "Why do you care?"

"'Cause it's on? Jeez, you're slow."

"I didn't invite you to watch it with me."

"Well good, 'cause it sucks and I don't wanna watch it anyway." Hunter put her hands behind her head. "Switch it to something else."

"Since when do you tell me what to do? Maybe I do want to watch this."

"No you don't, you said it sucks."

"You suck."

"Not as much as this show does. Change it."

"No, get out." Although without as much force as it needed to actually be a threat. "Actin' like you own the place- you really are like a cat, you know that?"

"Nuh uh." And Hunter put one hand on her leg, an unpleasant reminder of the fact that they were kind of close to each other on the couch, and she walked her fingers up and down. "Just lazy."

"Same thing." Smoker suddenly felt very awkward. She'd almost forgotten about her unwelcome personal space intrusions last time, and this brought it back rather quickly. What kind of person just... touched someone else like that without asking? They still barely knew each other, and there was she was, touching her leg like that. What the hell. What was wrong with this kid? She tried to wave her hand away. "Cut that out."

"What?" Hunter moved out of the way for a moment, but when Smoker stopped, she just started doing it again, like she wasn't thinking about it. And the look on her face made it seem like the thought that this was weird hadn't even occurred to her. Why did Smoker always get stuck with all the freaks?

"Stop touchin' me, it's weird." She again tried to shoo Hunter's hand away from her leg, at first attempting not to touch her, but then as Hunter gave more resistance, she smacked her hand once or twice. "Personal space, have you heard of it?"

"People say that to me a lot. I don't know why." And now she was grinning, more aware apparently of what she was doing and that she was annoying her, and she began to dodge and duck around Smoker's attempts to get her away. Like it was a game, or something. Goddamn it! This wasn't funny.

"Knock it off!"

"What? I'm not touching you!" As she hovered her hand over her leg, pulling it back before Smoker could push it away.

"Oh my god, are you _five_? Stop it!"

It didn't take long until it escalated into a minor little hand battle, Hunter now getting both her hands into it, infuriatingly quick and hard to hit, and Smoker trying to fend her off and getting more involved in it than she wanted. Why couldn't the kid take a hint? This wasn't a game or a joke, she wanted her to stop it already, and she just kept at it and bothering her and just kept smiling at her like an idiot, and Smoker didn't get it, what was wrong with her-

And then Hunter burst out laughing, startling Smoker into stillness, and she finally stopped, putting her hands in the pouch on her sweater. The hell? Smoker stared at her, not entirely sure what she should even say to her at this point, and she noticed that she was breathing a little hard.

"The look on your face is priceless," Hunter said eventually, still laughing. "You look so serious!" And a moment later... "Oh my god, is that you breathing?"

Smoker wasn't sure she should even dignify that with a response, and irritated, she stood up from the couch. Hunter followed her up, still giddy and apparently riled up from their little conflict. "You can't be serious, that didn't _wind_ you, did it? You can't be serious."

Actually, it sort of had, although it wasn't because of the physical part of it. It was more because Smoker couldn't remember the last person she'd done something like that with, and she'd actually been rather focused on fending her off, and her annoyance with her didn't mesh at all with how some stupid insane part of her might have thought somewhere that it was maybe sort of kind of fun in a stupid not-fun way, although she'd die before she told her that. She didn't know why she'd also wanted to laugh when Hunter had, and frankly whatever part of her that had wanted to was stupid, and the whole thing had keyed her up in a way that she wasn't familiar with and didn't care for, and left a tangled mess where she should know what to feel.

And without a clear way to feel, she settled for angry, and she tried to keep her back to her. "You're a huge pain in the ass, you know that? That's it, I'm done for tonight. Just get the hell out."

"I mean, I thought you didn't get enough exercise but to get winded just from that, that's like... I mean I don't even-"

"What did I just say?" Smoker turned on her, her voice raised and Hunter fell silent. "Get the hell out of my house!"

A moment where Hunter seemed startled by her anger, and yet she still, infuriatingly enough, didn't seem that intimidated by her. She recovered all too quickly. "Ah cmon, you're not that sensitive are you? I'm just messing with you, man, it's not a big deal."

"My threshold for pests?" Smoker raised her hand to the level of her eye, which was well over Hunter's head. "Up to here. Get out before I wring your neck."

"Hahaha I'd like to see you try that, Bonesy McSkeletor." Hunter shrugged the threat off casually, which really didn't help her mood at all. "But if you're really goin' to get so worked up over nothing then fine, I'll just come back later."

And she wished she could tell her to never come back, but the kid still owed her some money. Goddamn it, she probably knew that.

"Fine, whatever. Just get out."

"Alright, alright, I'm going." Hunter held up her hands in defeat, and she went over to the window.

"I have a door." Smoker pointed to it, exasperation a little clearer in her voice, but Hunter didn't stray from her course.

"Doors are for suckers," she said, and turned around. "You know you're easier to rile up than I thought. I thought it'd be a lot harder."

It was like she'd scientifically constructed that sentence to piss her off. Her, easily riled up? Of all the- she was not easily riled up! Smoker didn't let stupid shit like this bother her, at least not in front of someone else, and the fact that it had and Hunter was right just... UGH. The fucking nerve of this kid!

And showing that she was angry at her would probably just confirm to her that she was right, she'd gotten Smoker upset after all over nothing, so Smoker struggled to choke it back down and think of a different response.

She shrugged, looking at the wall and trying her best to look disinterested. "Tch, you get me riled up, you'll know it. Just thought since you were so desperate for a reason to go I'd give you one."

"Right." Hunter wasn't buying it. Damn it.

"You know this is the worst attempt to be friends with me I've ever seen." Giving her a sidelong glance. "You're really bad at this."

That got her, a little, and her smile faltered. It took a few moments for her to think of something to say, and at least that was satisfying. "Well, it's not like you make it easy," she said, a weak response, and it was obvious that she would've liked to have had a better one.

"Why should I?" Smoker felt a bit better now, like the tables had turned back in her favor, and it was easier to make her disinterested facade more genuine. "I didn't ask you to try."

"That's what makes it interesting," Hunter said in response, and that brought that mischievous spark back into her eyes. "And it gets you all worked up like nothin' else."

"Hmph, you don't _know_ that." Smoker looked away again.

"Worked pretty well this time, didn't it? It's the best way to drive you crazy."

"And you want to do that, why?"

"That's what friends do to each other, duh," Hunter said, and she laughed a little. "See? It's already too late, we might as well get friendship bracelets."

"Yeah, I'll be six feet under before that happens." Smoker looked back at her, and she shooed her away with both hands. "Go on, scat! Didn't I tell you to go?"

Hunter opened the window and stepped outside, then leaned back in, grinning stupidly at her. "See you soon, best friend!"

"God forbid!" Smoker shouted out the window as she disappeared from sight. "I'd rather kill myself!"

She shut it after her, annoyed and feeling very out of sorts, and she went and sat back on the couch with a huff. What was wrong with that kid? She thought that maybe this meeting would have sorted some of her feelings out, gotten her to decide one way or another if Hunter liked her or didn't like her or what, and now she just felt more confused than ever, and she hated it. What did Hunter want from her? How did she keep getting under her skin so easily?

Why was it so easy to talk to her sometimes?

Smoker turned up the volume on the TV, then remembered what she'd left it on before changing the channel. That show _was_ awful, after all.

God damn it.


	3. Be My Friend God Damn It - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunter asks her friends for advice, and there's a trip to the grocery store. Surely a trip to the grocery store can't go bad, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set before they were infected.

"So how long before the old lady stabs you?" Ray flicked a chip at her. Hunter batted it out of the air, then after giving it a little more thought, picked it up and popped it in her mouth. Five second rule, after all. And it was just carpet where they were lying, so no big deal. Ray did vacuum on occasion, in spite of how they'd tease him for it. It sort of reminded Hunter of Smoker, in a way - she really wouldn't have thought either of them would be that concerned about that kind of thing, but people had a way of surprising you.

Ray, like Smoker, also wasn't quite as old as he looked, although he did owe that impression in part to the almost perpetual five-o-clock shadow under his crooked nose. Whether or not he preferred it as a look or he was just lazy, it was hard to say. Again, it reminded her of Smoker, in a way, although she'd never tell him that. He probably wouldn't appreciate it.

It sort of gave her hope that maybe she and Smoker had something in common after all; while she and Ray may have had their differences, may not have seemed like people that would have become such good friends, they were really very similar where it counted. Their sense of humor was almost eerily identical, and they could on occasion finish the other's joke before they said it. Sometimes it was almost a game, trying to predict what kind of thing Ray would say, and he was annoyingly good at it himself too.

Hanging out with him was super easy - she never really had to think hard about anything except relaxing and laughing a lot, and she was sure he felt the same way. Sure, it made it sort of hard to talk to him about serious stuff, but Hunter never really wanted to talk about that kind of thing anyway, so it never came up. Mostly. And she had other friends that were better in that department anyway. Ray was fun, and funny, and that's what was really important to her. Even if he was a jerk sometimes, it was in a way she knew and could roll with, and she could be a jerk to him back and know he wouldn't hold it against her. That kind of ease was hard to come by.

It hadn't been easy becoming friends with him either at first, but they'd done it, and now she couldn't imagine them being anything else. Maybe that would be the case with Smoker too.

They were lying in front of his couch, as usual, ostensibly watching television since it was raining out and a bit too dangerous to go leaping around rainslick precipices, but mostly they were just poking at each other. Rainy days were always kind of boring, but Hunter's discovery of Smoker had at least given them a new topic of discussion.

Hunter grinned. "I think she's really warmin' up to me."

"Setting her on fire doesn't count." Ray lined up another chip. "I still don't get why you even want her to."

"She probably likes having someone to talk to," Jordan said from his vantage point on the couch. He briefly lifted his hood from his face to look at them both on the floor. "But she did kick you out again, didn't she?"

Damn it, she forgot she mentioned that part. She shrugged and tilted her head back and forth, obviously a bit hesitant to agree. "Weeeelll yeah, technically she did. But she does that like, every time."

"What'd you do to her this time?" David asked from the other side of the couch, with a touch of exaggerated weariness.

"I didn't do anything!" Hunter held out her hands. "She's just- she gets all weird about touching and stuff, I dunno."

"Don't tell me you were all up in her face, were you?" Jordan groaned. "No wonder she kicked you out."

"I don't get why she's got such a big problem with it." Hunter snatched the next chip Ray flicked at her out of the air. "It's not like I want to hurt her or anything."

"How many times do we have to explain this to you, there's this thing called 'personal space'." David made fingerquotes to emphasis his point. "Jeez, how stupid are you?"

She smacked his hands out of the air, and he laughed. "More like 'people are too sensitive' space, not my fault."

"So how mad did you make her? Her face get all red, steam come out her ears, never darken my doorstep again, somethin' like that?" Ray finally decided to eat a chip rather than throw it at her. "I swear, when you talk about her all I picture is like... a cartoon character."

"She got pretty mad." Hunter stopped trying to pin David's hands down, and frowned a little in thought. David, in response, began tugging at the ears on her hood. Like he could talk about invading people's personal space. But David liked hassling them for things he was known for doing anyway. The irony of it appealed to him or something, Hunter wasn't sure. It never quite made sense to her. His brand of sarcasm had always been weird. "But I think I fixed it before I left."

"What do you mean, fixed it?" Jordan said.

"Like... I got her to smile again, sort of. Or at least, make a joke. Kind of." Hunter put a finger to her mouth to give the appearance of giving the matter great thought. "Although... she did say she'd rather die than be friends with me."

"Well that's encouraging." David rolled his eyes.

"Sounds about right though." And a chip hit her cheek. "Death'd definitely be better than bein' stuck with you."

"It'd take more'n death to stop me." She picked up the chip from the carpet. "I think I'm getting through to her."

"You tried to talk to her, right? What'd you learn?"

"Hmm..." Hunter chewed thoughtfully, scratching her head beneath her hood. "She wouldn't tell me about her job... or her family, really..."

"Really scraping the bottom of her soul there." Ray smirked at her.

"Did you learn ANYthing?"

"She didn't want to tell me anything!" Hunter held out her arms. "She's not real easy to talk to, guys."

"So of course, you gotta keep trying." David waved a hand. "After all, why take a hint?"

Hunter ignored him. "She has a lot of books... and movies, a lot of movies too. I can't remember which ones... but there's a lot of 'em. And CDs, she has a lot of those."

"Then watch a movie with her." Jordan pointed at her, his eyes closed. "That might open her up a little. And if not, you can just watch the movie instead of tryin' to talk to her."

"Hmm." That wasn't a bad idea. "Which one?"

"Probably one of hers." David stroked his chin. "That way there might be a chance, a _slim_ chance, that she'll say yes."

"Awful lot of work to bang an old lady." Ray rolled onto his back, speaking very casually. "Is she really that hot to you?"

"She's hotter than your mom, and I already slept with her." Hunter stuck her tongue out at him. "I think it's a step up, frankly."

"You should just ditch her." Ray raised his eyebrows, like it was an innocent suggestion. "I still don't know why you're being stupid enough to actually give her money. You should've just taken off."

"She's still got my stuff." Hunter frowned.

"Never should've gave her anything." Ray shook his head. "That's what you get."

"Yeah, I know that _now_." Hunter unfortunately did not have any chips near her to throw back at Ray. Damn it. He'd probably moved them all over by him for just that reason. "If you got a time machine or something then that might actually be helpful."

"I dunno, would you really be able to live without her? The love of your life?" Ray pressed his hands together, giving her a ridiculous wide-eyed look she couldn't help but laugh at.

"I always knew you were a masochist," David said. "All she does is treat you bad, and you can't get enough."

"She's not treating me bad." Hunter flopped down onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. "Well, not all the time."

"Kicked you out... how many times now?" Ray held up four fingers.

"Not that many." Hunter couldn't stay still for long, and she propped herself back up on her elbows. "And most of the time it was 'cause I made her angry, she didn't just do it for the hell of it."

"She probably would though." David flicked one of the ears on her hood. "I mean we can barely stand you, and we're your friends."

"See, you guys get it! Friendship is all about making the other person miserable." Hunter held out one arm. "Barely tolerating them and calling them names and then following them around everywhere when they tell you to go away."

" _That_ sounds familiar." Ray lazily tried to reach for another chip, but lying on his back on the floor didn't make it very easy. He nearly tipped the bowl over. "Shit, all of a sudden I understand how that old bitch probably feels about you."

"And then you stab them and steal their wallet... wait, what were we talking about?" Hunter tried to bat David's hands away from her hood, and ended up getting into a halfhearted game of Don't Touch Me, much like she'd played with Smoker not much earlier. Although David was much more familiar with it than Smoker was of course, and thus wouldn't flip out at her for no reason. It was so much easier with them. "Oh yeah, that's right. I hate you guys." A moment where she let down her defenses, and David smooshed his hand against her face, and she shoved his arm away. "So much."

They laughed at that, and Hunter knew they would, it was so easy to make them laugh, and she leaned against the couch. David shoved her hood over her eyes.

"Aww, we hate you too," he said, his lips pursed to give his voice a ridiculous edge, and Ray made a fake retching noise in the background.

Jordan had mostly been watching them, as he usually did. He'd always been kind of quiet, but she knew he was listening. He was a bit more thoughtful than the rest of them, and that might have been connected to how he wasn't constantly trying to one-up everyone during conversation like the rest of their little group, but Hunter thought that it might have something more to do with the fact that she was pretty sure Jordan got stoned a lot more than the rest of them. Although she'd never asked him that or had any proof or anything, and really wasn't quite sure how to bring that up, with him or the others. Their group wasn't really the best at talking about serious stuff, and sometimes they joked about him doing that and he'd just laugh, but that could have meant anything, right?

Either way, whenever he said something, Hunter tried to listen. "Give the movie thing a try the next time you go over there," he said, with a lazy smile. "You never know. Maybe next time she won't kick you out."

He did have a point. What harm in it could there be? And it'd be nice if they could find something they could do where Smoker wouldn't flip out at her for no reason, which seemed to happen a lot.

Maybe she could make this work.

\---

The sky was still overcast the next time she went to Smoker's place. It had been raining off and on for the past few days, but today at least it had been dry, so getting to Smoker's house hadn't required her trudging around on the ground, bored out of her mind. It was so much more interesting to make a game of it, of how to get up there and how quickly she could do it. From above, from below, looping around the sides... people who didn't do Parkour never really appreciated all the possibilities that opened to them as a result.

She usually hoped it would stay dry during weather like this, but as she tapped on the window of Smoker's place, she realized that it'd probably be irrelevant, since she'd be spending most of her time inside with her. Well, at least it wouldn't be as boring as it usually was. Smoker made things interesting, even if it was mostly because she was so cranky all the time.

No response, so Hunter tapped again, peering inside to see if she could catch a glimpse of her. Finally Smoker came into view, wearing a large and heavy black coat along with an ugly brown hat. She did not look happy to see her, but Hunter had sort of expected that.

"Ugh, make it quick," Smoker said when she opened the window. "I have places to be."

"Where you going?" Hunter had no intention of making things quick whatsoever, and climbed inside in spite of Smoker trying to block her path. She never tried hard enough. Eventually she'd have to pick up on that if she really wanted to get rid of her.

"I was going to the store. There are some things I need to pick up." Smoker shut the window quickly behind Hunter, crossing her arms and glaring at her. At first she assumed she was doing it because she was angry at her, but she noticed a bit of a tremble to her arms. Was she cold? Hunter didn't even think it was that cold in here, but then again, when she'd gotten close to her that other time, she'd barely felt her giving off any heat... someone that thin probably felt cold all the time. That'd explain the big ugly coat. "How much you got?"

"You want any help?"

"I just want your cash." Smoker frowned at her. She didn't seem particularly welcoming, not that she ever was, but it was hard for Hunter to tell if this was just her general bad attitude or if she was still holding a grudge from the last time they'd met. Hopefully not, that was like ages ago. Smoker needed to learn how to let things go. "You got it or not?"

"I got it, I got it." Giving her the money might get her in a better mood, and while she might have been able to strike a bargain (let me come with you, and I'll give you the money) if she'd really tried at it, it'd probably be more work than it was worth. Particularly when Smoker didn't look very happy as it was. She pulled out her wallet, sighing as she handed over another fifty dollars. Ugh, she felt like it'd been weeks since she'd bought anything for herself. She had to save it all to give to her. Every time she thought of that, it got that much easier to start resenting her for this whole stupid thing again. "Here."

"Great." Smoker snatched it from her, briefly counted it, and shoved it into her pocket. She turned away from her, waving her hand. She wasn't sure if it was the cold or the stress of going outside that seemed to have her so worked up, but she definitely seemed a bit more touchy than usual. "You know the way out. Get going."

"So it's halfway done, isn't it? That's about a hundred fifty I've given you now." Hunter followed her, and she noticed Smoker occasionally glancing over her shoulder to glare at her. "So we won't have to see each other much longer, huh?"

"Day can't come quick enough, kid." Smoker went to her closet, apparently debating whether or not to put on another coat, then turned on her quickly. "Look, I wasn't playing around before, I actually have to go. You can't stick around and pester me today, I'm busy."

"Going grocery shopping?" Hunter put her hands in her pouch, deciding the most annoying thing she could do was act nonchalant in the face of Smoker's irritation, and she was right. Smoker huffed at her angrily.

"Yes. Why? I'm not buyin' anything for you. Why would you even want to come with me anyway, you can't be that bored."

"I dunno, it could give us a chance to talk to each other." And Smoker groaned at that thought. "And if you're going to be buying a lot of stuff, it's gonna be pretty heavy, right? And you got a lot of stairs up here, don't you?"

She wasn't being entirely subtle, and sure enough, she could tell that Smoker knew what she was getting at. The intensity of her glare lessened... she was considering what she was offering, although she still seemed somewhat dubious. "Yeah, why?" Cautiously.

"Just thought you'd appreciate someone else helping you carry stuff up," Hunter said, deliberately trying to sound very nonchalant in spite of her knowing grin.

"Hmmph." Still skeptical, and she thought for a few seconds. Probably trying to think of a reason not to accept, although Hunter herself couldn't imagine one. "How much can you carry?"

"A lot." With a much wider grin in spite of herself. Smoker had no idea how strong she was. Most people didn't. "Way more than you can, I bet."

"Why do you even want to?" Smoker turned away from her, picking up a set of keys from a table near the door. "What do you even get out of this, kid?"

She kept calling her kid, that was so annoying. She wasn't a kid anymore. "Get to bug you all day, why wouldn't I want to do that?" At least it was easy to channel her brief annoyance into a smart comment or two.

Smoker frowned, humming in thought, and then she let out a frustrated sigh. "Fine, if you really want to come then go ahead. God only knows what's wrong with you."

Yesssss. She knew Smoker couldn't resist. Guessing by her stick arms she'd want all the help carrying stuff she could get, although she still wasn't sure what it was that she'd buy at the store. Obviously she wasn't that concerned about food. Hunter resisted the urge to fist pump. "Awesome! You'll see, you'll wonder how you ever did things without me."

"I do think about what my life was like without you in it, if that's what you mean." Smoker opened the door, and Hunter ducked past her into the hallway, already way more excited than she probably should be. Ha, she knew she could do this! Sure, she hadn't been entirely positive that Smoker was going to say yes, and if she'd said no she didn't really have a backup plan, but she'd said yes after all! And that had to be a step towards friendship, as far as she was concerned. Or at least, towards Smoker not hating her, in spite of how she was glaring at her now. She knew she could do this. Smoker might have thought she didn't want Hunter for a friend, but Hunter was totally going to prove her wrong. She'd come begging to her for her friendship, she was sure of it. That'd show her.

Smoker shut the door and locked it, and she began walking down the stairs, not checking to see if Hunter was following her or not. She still didn't seem entirely at ease with the idea, which Hunter guessed wasn't a huge surprise. Smoker really didn't seem to like the whole interacting-with-people thing, although being a big shut-in probably had a hand in that. No wonder her social skills were so stunted. Hunter probably should have been thankful that Smoker could even hold a conversation, considering how deprived she must have been all by herself.

She followed her dutifully outside, noted how Smoker shuddered as the wind outside brushed by her and how she cursed under her breath. Definitely did not like cold weather, even if Hunter didn't think it was that cold out. There was something to be said for being hardy, that was for sure.

"So which way is it?" Hunter stood next to her, looking up at her face beneath her hat. She wasn't sure why she was wearing that, since it made her look ridiculous. But then again, even with her very limited understanding or interest in fashion, she could tell that Smoker knew even less about it than she did. The interesting thing about it though was that Smoker didn't seem to care that her clothes were shabby and ugly and didn't go together. Normal people generally seemed a little self-conscious about that kind of thing, but Smoker really didn't seem to notice. At least, not that she could tell. No doubt a side-effect of her hermit lifestyle. So weird!

"Five, ten minutes away," Smoker mumbled. She seemed to be heading for a car parked on the street. "Shouldn't take that long."

"Is that your car?" Hunter tilted her head as Smoker pulled out her keys. It definitely matched Smoker's general fashion sense in that it looked pretty ugly (what kind of color was that?) and old, and again Smoker didn't really seem to care. This was not what she'd been picturing in her head. "You drive a car?"

"Yeah, what else would I drive?" Smoker gave her a look. Hunter shrugged, not entirely prepared to answer that question and now that she had to, she realized that what she _had_ been picturing was... kind of ridiculous.

"I dunno, like... I dunno, I guess like, maybe a motorcycle or something." She rubbed the back of her head, and the look on Smoker's face said it all. She held up her hands quickly, trying to smooth over whatever offense she might have caused but more importantly, trying to make it clear that she was just joking and totally didn't actually think that and she wasn't an idiot. "I dunno, you just kind of look like you'd have one! I mean, I can see it, but you know, whatever, it's not a big deal or anything, I just thought it'd be funny, sort of."

Ugh, she could never recover these moments as quickly as she liked. She hated exposing those little awkward parts of herself. Smoker raised an eyebrow at her, annoyed and then she could see her gaze soften a little in that way it often did whenever Hunter was trying to cover up or apologize for something. Like Smoker thought it was amusing whenever she flailed around like this, and she probably did, not that it made her feel any better. "A motorcycle? Really?"

"Yeah, I dunno, just like... you kind of looked like... with the boots and all the plaid and... you know." Hunter looked at the ground, and sometimes she really hated how Smoker could make her feel like an idiot just by having her say whatever was on her mind. Smoker didn't even have to comment on it, Hunter felt stupid just saying it. When it came out of her mouth it just seemed like she was judging her based on a stereotype than anything else, which wasn't how it sounded in her head. Goddamn it.

"No, I don't drive a motorcycle," Smoker said, and she got in her car. There was a moment, and then she leaned over and unlocked Hunter's door. She got in quickly, if only because she didn't want Smoker to drive off without her. The inside of the car reeked of smoke, which wasn't a huge surprise. Didn't make it smell any less awful though. There were a few discarded cigarette butts scattered around beneath her feet, along with a few crumpled up paper bags, possibly from some fast food place or another. Not as messy as it could have been, but still. At least it had a CD player along with a tape deck, although there were still a lot of tapes scattered around. Did they even make those anymore? "They're gleaming metal deathtraps. I'd rather stick with the car."

Ugh. Would Smoker let her open a window? She knew Smoker was already cold, but the smoke smell was getting to her. Although it did make her think... "Yeah, 'cause you're real concerned about your health. You smoke two packs a day or three?"

"You're not going to give me the whole spiel about cancer and lung disease and yadda yadda yadda, are you?" Smoker rolled her eyes as she started the car, more tired than annoyed. "'Cause I've heard it all before."

"Well you're not listening if you're still doing it though." Hunter leaned against her door. At least now that they were actually in motion, it was unlikely that Smoker would kick her out of the car and make her walk. Hopefully.

"Goodness, you're absolutely right, I'll stop smoking immediately." With more emotion in her voice than usual, deliberately sarcastic, and Hunter actually felt kind of satisfied in spite of how Smoker was obviously mocking her. It was better than her normal uninterested tone, or even some of the weird flat jokes she'd told her before. She'd gotten her involved, yessss. "If only I'd known it was that easy all along!"

"You should really quit though." Hunter was smiling a little at getting her to almost be kind of silly, but at the same time this was a serious problem. "It's not good for you."

"Wow, I had no idea." Still sarcastic, and the overblown tone in her voice was gone now. Back to that familiar weariness at the topic of conversation. "Thanks, _Mom_."

"And it's bad for other people too. You know how many people a year..." She didn't want to let this drop, but she had a feeling that Smoker wasn't going to let her get very far. Sure enough, while she was talking Smoker reached over, rather slowly and deliberately, to the radio dial in the car, and then turned it up in a clear attempt to drown her out. She was a little annoyed at being dismissed (and when Hunter had just been trying to help her! Didn't she care about her health at all?) and was going to say something about how lame and passive-aggressive that was when she noticed the music that was playing. It was something boring, some classic rock thing, not that Hunter could tell who or what it was. It all sounded the same to her. She wasn't entirely surprised that Smoker listened to that kind of music though, although she'd had her pegged as someone who'd be more into punk or grunge or something.

"What is this?" Hunter said, making her distaste clear in her voice. Smoker had been staring straight ahead, just slightly tapping her fingers, and at her question, she stiffened and stopped.

"You serious?" She was trying for disdain, but she couldn't keep the slight surprise from her tone.

"Yeah, what is this? Sounds boring." Hunter was still annoyed at the fact Smoker wouldn't listen to her, and the fact she owed her money still hung at the back of her mind, so she couldn't quite resist digging at her about it. Maybe it'd go too far, maybe it wouldn't, but either way it was too late now.

"It's the Riders." Smoker rolled her eyes, and she raised her hand to grab at the air near her mouth. Like she was reaching for a cigarette even though she wasn't smoking one, which sort of amazed Hunter. How much did this woman smoke? "The Midnight Riders. Don't tell me you've never heard of 'em."

"It all sounds the same to me." Hunter leaned back, considering propping her feet up on the dashboard but deciding against it in the end. Smoker could still shove her out of the car. "Boring."

"Hmmph." She was getting used to hearing that from her. Smoker wasn't able to give her her full attention, being focused on driving as she was, but she glanced at her for a few moments, and she could see the haughty look in her eyes. That was new. "Don't surprise me you know nothing about good music."

"Sure I do." Hunter was a bit intrigued by this change in her mood. She'd gotten Smoker irritated at her before, but she hadn't quite gotten her to act like this. Defensive, but in a strange way. "This definitely isn't it."

"Like I said." Smoker turned the wheel into the parking lot. "Nothing about good music."

"Don't tell me you like this stuff?" Hunter leaned towards her, and Smoker kept that odd tone in her voice. This was something that mattered to her, if the way she was talking about it meant anything. Which was weird, since why would anyone care about something as dumb as this? It was just music, and not even good music at that. Shit, most of the people that Hunter knew that actually liked this kind of music thought the Midnight Riders sucked. If she was remembering the right name.

Smoker had been so adamant about not telling her anything about herself or her interests, but here she'd stumbled across something that was apparently important to her. She'd have to remember this.

"Surrounded by philistines," Smoker said, and it was in a way where it almost sounded like a joke, but at the same time sounded like she sort of meant it. "I almost feel sorry for you."

Hunter really wasn't sure what to make of it. It was almost like the joking way she herself told people that she liked things, just in case they didn't agree so she could duck out of the following conversation about how much it sucked, but... more sincere and straightforward than Hunter could imagine being. It was such a stupid thing to like and nobody just said they liked something dumb like this without pretending they didn't, that was... weird.

"Figures you listen to old people music anyway," Hunter said, still not entirely sure how she should be reacting. Part of her just wanted to laugh in Smoker's face for being so openly defensive about something she liked, but she had a tendency to blow up at her for no reason, and Hunter wanted a ride back home after all. Although on second thought, what had just come out of her mouth probably wasn't the most diplomatic thing she could have said.

"Shows what you know, it's not even that old." Smoker got out of the car, and Hunter followed along behind her. Despite how adamant she was about the topic, her irritation at Hunter's dislike seemed... blunter than some of her previous blowups. Like Hunter could poke her about this and not have her freak out, although Smoker seemed bizarrely resolute about liking a dumb old fogey band. That didn't make sense at all to her. One or the other, she couldn't do both. "No taste, I swear."

Shopping with Smoker was an interesting experience. She let Hunter push the cart when she snagged it away from her, and only rolled her eyes when she pushed it down an aisle and hopped on in a bid for her attention. She'd expected her to yell at her not to make a spectacle of herself, or get her worked up in a fun way, but Smoker seemed bizarrely unmoved. Which was a bit disappointing, and when she did come back and start following her along quietly, she caught Smoker smirking at her once or twice. Like she knew what Hunter had been up to, and knew that not reacting would bug her. Damn it, she got her again. Sometimes she really underestimated her.

Hunter asked her about the food she was getting, and Smoker gave her curt answers, apparently not interested in conversation about it. It was all pieces of food rather than actual food, like fish and herbs and raw meat and stuff like that, vegetables and stuff. That was kind of weirding her out, really, since there was no way a woman in such bad shape ate healthy, and so she was a little relieved when Smoker finally did start picking out instant stuff. They were all things that only took a few minutes to make or microwave, and from what little she could gather from her, it was mostly because of the time factor rather than the taste of it. At least, that's what Smoker claimed.

She did get a few sweet things though, Pop-Tarts and soda and some little candies and a chocolate cake, and when Hunter poked at her about it, she grumbled but didn't say much to defend herself. She knew Smoker had to eat junk most of the time, it didn't add up otherwise.

She did, however, give Smoker a decidedly unapproving look when she went to get herself a carton of cigarettes, and that Smoker met with an equally serious glare. This was something they were apparently not going to see eye to eye on, but she was determined to try anyway. This was important, after all. Hunter protested as stridently as possible, rattling off as many statistics as she could remember (and she probably got most of them wrong) and pointing out how much money it cost and how much she could save if she just didn't buy them until finally Smoker turned on her and raised her voice.

"Just fucking drop it! Christ! It's none of your fucking business!"

Hunter was startled that she'd gotten Smoker to yell at her, in public, and Smoker didn't even seem that bothered by the fact that everyone was staring at them now, and Hunter backed down, even though she knew she was right. This was well past Smoker's normal irritation level, and at this rate she'd be walking home if she kept pushing her. Apparently this was a sensitive topic, and although she didn't want to, she reluctantly dropped it as asked. Smoker growled to herself under her breath afterwards, noticeably not looking at Hunter at all while she paid for everything and made her way to the car. Hunter followed after her, feeling a bit angry at her herself for being so stubborn, but also not really sure what to say to defuse the situation. Smoker was for all purposes ignoring her, although that didn't stop her from ranting about Hunter underneath her breath, just softly enough so she could only make out most of the curse words.

When she popped the trunk to put everything away, and Hunter picked something up out of the cart and handed it to her, Smoker blinked for a second like she was surprised to see her there, then scowled at her like she could wish her away again.

"Here." Hunter held it out, and she probably should have smiled or something to lighten the situation, but she couldn't bring herself to do it somehow. She just stared back at her. Smoker kept glaring at her, like she'd done something wrong (and what had she even done wrong, she was hassling her about it because she cared, really, what was wrong with that?), and then reluctantly took the bag from her, grumbling the entire way.

She helped her load up the car like that, mostly in awkward silence, although by the end of it Smoker's anger seemed to be dissipating a little, and she wasn't glaring at her quite so intensely. Maybe her help was getting through to her, who knew.

And then Smoker fished through the bags, ripped open the carton, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She tore it open almost viciously, obviously venting her frustration on the packet in question, and she pulled a lighter from her pocket. It only took a few seconds for her to get it lit, and then she took a deep drag and leaned back against the open trunk, breathing it out with a long sigh. Like she enjoyed it, although Hunter couldn't imagine how anyone could do that.

"Don't start," Smoker said to her, with a sidelong glance and a dark, warning edge to her voice.

Hunter tilted her head, giving her a clearly disapproving look that wasn't lost on her, by the glance shot her way, and then she moved deliberately upwind of her, to at least try and avoid the smell. Some people were so selfish and self-centered. She crossed her arms and frowned at the ground.

There was quiet between them for a few moments, just the sound of Smoker inhaling and breathing out clouds of cancerous death, and then finally she said something.

"Thought I should get it done now, since you probably don't want me smokin' in the car," Smoker said, in a sarcastic, spiteful way, and she looked away from her. Hunter wanted to turn around and go DUH at her, match her hateful tone, but then she thought about what she said a little bit more, looked beneath the angry exterior of the words. Didn't want her smoking in the car... she actually cared about what Hunter wanted? Was actually taking Hunter's feelings into account?

In a way, that was very encouraging... almost touching, that she'd reached her enough so that Smoker was thinking of her. On the other hand, god damn it, why did she have to make this so hard? It was like she wanted to be alone forever.

"You can't wait until we get back?" Hunter said, trying to focus on the upside of Smoker's terse comment rather than the harsh way it had been said, and she didn't have much success. _Must not be sarcastic, must not be sarcastic..._

"No." And she took another deep drag, her arms tight against her body, and she shivered slightly. From the cold or what, she wasn't sure. She breathed it out, a bit shaky in the cool air. She gave her another sidelong glance, like a silent _And you know why, don't you_. "I can't."

"Whatever." Hunter put her hands in her pouch, leaned back against the car like Smoker had and propped up one foot. Hopefully this wouldn't take a million years. "When did you even start anyway?"

It took a while for her to answer, and at that point Hunter assumed that Smoker was ignoring her. She blinked when she heard her gravely voice again, a bit rougher than before. Probably from the smoke. "Sixteen."

"Really?" Wow, that was a long time. How was she not dead? Although apparently some people lived into like their eighties even when they were smokers, although they had to get holes dug into their throats or something. It was so gross. "So how long has it been now?" Smoker had never told her her age after all... she just assumed 'old' and never got anything more specific. Although, she had told her that she wasn't as old as she looked.

Smoker was getting close to the end of her cigarette, so at least Hunter wouldn't have to put up with the smoke for much longer. The smell was inescapable though, ugh. It took her a long time to respond, and Hunter watched her face and could see her general sour expression shift every now and then, like she was thinking. Perhaps debating whether or not she should answer her question at all. Smoker did seem to get perverse enjoyment out of telling her nothing about herself.

"Some fifteen years, give or take," she said, finally. Hunter almost did a double take. No way she was that young, she'd thought she'd have to be in her forties at least. To look this old and only be in her thirties, what the hell had Smoker done to herself? She knew smoking caused premature aging but shit. They were only like ten years apart, if she wasn't lying. This was blowing her mind.

"And before you ask, I've tried quitting before." Smoker took one final drag off her cigarette, then flicked it to the ground. She ground it out with her boot before turning to look at her. "But the coffin nails and me are in it for the long haul."

What the hell was a coffin nail? Was that a weird word for cigarette? Guessing from her speech patterns, probably, although Hunter had never heard that phrase before.

"Do you want to quit?" Hunter asked, more quietly. Smoker looked up at the sky, tucking the pack of cigarettes into her pocket. She waited a few seconds before responding.

"Not really." A brief second, and then she straightened up and turned to shut the trunk. "No more questions."

"About what, your smoking or everything in general?" She could have used a more playful tone in her voice, but she wasn't sure if she should just yet. Smoker could still very well be pissed at her.

"Ugh." Smoker sighed, the familiar long-suffering kind she'd heard from her before. One that was hopefully a sign that she was returning to her typical resistant mood, rather than the _fuck off and die_ one she had a moment ago. "No more you, if only."

Considering how she'd snapped at her not so long ago, that still stung a bit more than it should have. It didn't sound like she meant it, or at least, it was that same tone she'd had earlier that day when she was likewise bemoaning the presence of Hunter in her life, and it lacked the sincerity it needed to convince Hunter that Smoker didn't actually want to be with her all the time. But at the same time, it still kind of hurt, and it bothered her that it hurt because it shouldn't have. Why would Hunter care? People had said far worse to her. Shit, Smoker had said far worse to her! It pissed her off how Smoker could hurt her in little ways with her disapproval that people shouldn't have been able to do.

"Well, too bad," Hunter said, forcing a smile, and Smoker shook her head. She got in the car, and Hunter stood by the passenger side, waiting. She could see Smoker through the smudged glass, staring at her with a thoughtful look on her face. Then she could see her sigh, and she leaned over and unlocked the door to let her in. Well, at least Hunter wouldn't have to walk home. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

"I'm aware of that now." Smoker rolled her eyes, that familiar low-grade irritation that came with a successful pestering comment. "Still don't know why you're so gung-ho about being pals."

"I told you before. It drives you crazy," Hunter said, and it felt a little easier to smile now.

"You're crazy."

"Your face is crazy."

Smoker, in response, turned the music back up, although she could see the edges of her mouth quirk just slightly. Another almost smile! She wasn't in the best of moods to appreciate it right then, but later on she knew she'd look back on this moment and be satisfied by her victory.

Hunter considered mocking the music, but given the bad mood she'd just gotten Smoker out of, it seemed like it could backfire on her. So she decided to spend her time watching Smoker instead. She still couldn't see why she liked this music so much, but she could see it affect her, which was sort of fascinating. It took a while for her to apparently forget that Hunter was there, a slow progress of involvement in the music. Her fingers shifted, then tapped slightly along with the song, her body swaying just so back and forth, slight shifts in her weight, and when Hunter was quiet for a while, she caught her mouthing some of the words. She wasn't quite so far gone as to sing while Hunter was there, so she still must have known that Hunter was present, but it wasn't enough to stop her from enjoying it. Hunter still couldn't understand why she liked it so much, since it still all sounded the same to her, but it did seem to make Smoker pretty happy. Which was probably a first. All she'd heard about so far were things that made her miserable, and apparently there were a lot of those. Hunter included at times, according to her.

This was the first thing that she could see make her happy. Aside from the cigarettes, anyway.

She watched her as they made their way home, bobbing her head just slightly, and then while she was parking, a drum riff happened to come on, and Smoker for a brief second, before she could catch herself, raised her hands off the steering wheel and airdrummed a little. She caught herself almost immediately, but she saw her do it, a few seconds of musical abandon in such a silly, goofy way that Hunter couldn't help but laugh. That was the last thing she'd ever expect her to do, especially to music this boring, but she saw her do it, there was no taking it back now.

And there was something infectious about seeing Smoker... happy about something. She'd never really seen her happy, and it just... there was something heartening about knowing that it was possible after all. That buried underneath all that grumpy crabbiness she still had the ability to be silly, to enjoy things.

Unfortunately, Smoker seemed to assume that she was laughing at her (and in a way she kind of was, but also with her at the same time! Hunter could do that!) and was quick to look away, frowning. She did not look pleased at getting caught.

"Alright, time to show me takin' you along wasn't a big waste of my time," she mumbled, deliberately not looking Hunter in the face as they got out of the car.

Hunter was more than willing to rise to the challenge. This was her chance to really wow her, and she was going to do just that. This was when it'd all come together.

While Hunter might have been strong enough to lift it all, the logistics of carrying all the bags was a little trickier. Smoker'd asked for plastic bags, which did make things a bit easier than paper, so she just kept adding plastic loop after plastic loop to her arms. Sure, a lot of the bags were scrunched together and she'd doubled her diameter and all the weight was cutting off the circulation to her fingers and hopefully there wasn't anything fragile in the bags because it was probably broken now, but this could work. No problem.

"You showin' off? Don't hurt yourself, kid." Smoker looked at her, raising an eyebrow as she picked up the remaining two bags herself. Even so, she could see her arms straining, which was almost laughable. Hunter probably could have carried them without breaking a sweat. That's what Smoker got for being a big walking stick.

"Sure you can take all that?" Hunter said, smirking triumphantly at her, and Smoker gave her what was almost a concerned look behind her confusion.

"You're serious? You're going to take all of those?" And she shook her head in apparent disbelief. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Then feast your eyes, 'cause I'm already doing it!" Hunter said, a bit loudly, and she blamed that on the minor adrenaline rush she was getting at proving her wrong. Also from testing herself, particularly when she was sure she would win.

Smoker shook her head again, still not quite convinced, and after she locked the car up, she began the trek back to her building. She walked by Hunter, brushing by the many bags that were sticking out from her arms. Getting through the narrow stairwell with all these was going to be a bit of an adventure. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?"

Climbing the stairs wasn't easy, and definitely not with all the bags she was carrying since that limited her maneuverability considerably, but Hunter was determined not to fail now, not when she had this perfect chance to show Smoker what she could do. She forced herself to keep pace with Smoker, trying to keep her breathing quiet. Smoker fortunately didn't seem to notice how hard Hunter was exerting herself, more focused on her own struggle upwards than anything else. Even without carrying as much as Hunter was, she was winded awfully quickly. That's what she got for smoking so much, and Hunter would have told her that if she could have spared the breath for it.

They reached her apartment, and Hunter was all too glad to drop her burden on the floor inside (and again, she hoped nothing too fragile was in those because she didn't do it very gently), and Smoker put her hands on her hips, shaking her head slowly.

"Man alive," she said quietly, and she let down her defenses enough to plainly look impressed. "You actually did it."

"I told you I could." Hunter grinned at her, and Smoker still seemed too amazed at the fact it happened to try and hide her stunned reaction. She knew Smoker had been underestimating her! Everyone always did, they always thought that just because she was Asian she was a pushover-

"Usually takes me like an hour to get all this up here." Smoker was still staring at all the bags with wide eyes. She whistled slightly. "Man alive."

"Ready to admit I was right, and that it was a good idea to take me along?" Hunter put one hand on her hip, the other pointing at herself with her thumb. That actually hadn't been a bad workout for a little errand, and she felt satisfied and accomplished now that it was done. She really didn't understand why more people didn't exercise - this feeling was practically the best part. That and being able to rub this in Smoker's face after all her griping.

Smoker crossed her arms, tilted her head at her with a sort of appraising look, and this time, instead of the typical scowl Hunter expected, Smoker gave her an actual smile. It wasn't a hint of a smile, or a ghost of one, but an actual, sincere smile that reached up into her eyes, giving her crow's feet at the corners.

"Fine, you were right. You saved me a lot of time. You happy?" And there was a warmth in her voice that she'd never heard before.

And Hunter's heart leapt up in her chest, the shock of it leaving her speechless for a few moments, and the familiar warm feeling that came with exercise didn't even compare to how she felt now. She smiled back at her, wide and somewhat goofy, her heart thudding in her chest. Finally. Finally!

"Yeah," she said. "I am."

And it didn't even occur to her that she'd forgotten her original plan to watch a movie with her until she was already on her way home.


	4. Be My Friend God Damn It - Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smoker finally reaches out to her. Hunter does not react the way she thought she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set before they were infected.

That goddamn kid was driving her crazy.

She didn't even need to be around to be doing it, which made it all the more annoying. When she had idle moments during the day, Smoker would find her thoughts inevitably drawn to her.

She just could not make heads or tails of her. Everything about Hunter didn't match up. Sometimes she was useful, sometimes she was a pain in the ass. Sometimes she didn't seem interested in her at all, and sometimes she acted like she was her mother or something. Hot or cold all the time with no in-between, and no warning between when she could switch from one to the other. How could someone live with being so emotionally unstable? Smoker really had no idea.

She hated the fact she was thinking about this.

The stupid kid actually had the nerve to start judging her about her cigarettes, like she was about to drop them for some punk girl she just met, like she had any place to do that. She hassled her about her choice in music, although she actually wasn't that surprised by that. She didn't think Hunter looked like the type to like the Riders. She was probably into that Top 40 pop garbage or something. For someone who apparently wanted so desperately to be a part of her life, Hunter sure didn't seem to approve of half of it. It didn't make sense.

Hunter presumed so much intimacy with her - it was infuriating in a way, that she thought she could treat her this way, talk to her like that, tell her what to do and then look confused whenever Smoker put her back in her place. That intimacy was what she was striving for, not what she already had. How someone could be so socially inept, she had no idea. She didn't get Hunter. She didn't think she ever would. No one could probably figure that brat out.

And it wasn't like Smoker had many people she could ask for advice, not that she would have done that in the first place. She doubted anyone would really understand the situation. She didn't really understand how it'd come to this herself. Much like before, when she and Hunter had clicked at times without thought or effort, somehow Hunter seemed to be getting closer and closer to her without her realizing it. She'd come to the sobering and somewhat horrific realization the night of Hunter's last visit that she'd actually, for few brief moments, been _happy_ that Hunter had helped her with the groceries after all. She'd actually enjoyed her company when she loitered around for half an hour afterwards, the two of them watching television and teasing each other. If she hadn't come to her senses, she might have actually _missed_ her when she left. And she hadn't been thinking about any of it. It just kept happening, for some reason, when she wasn't paying attention.

Closer and closer, like a shark circling its prey. Maybe someday Hunter would actually live up to her threats, and the two of them would somehow become friends after all. Presumably after Smoker had gone insane.

At least she almost had all the money for her window, so soon she wouldn't have to see or think about her again. At this point, she was sure that Hunter thought they were the best of friends for some bizarre reason, but Smoker certainly did not agree (and hadn't given her any reason to think differently, so it wasn't her fault in the least), and she had absolutely no desire to see her again, or spend any time with her. Really, she was not looking forward to her next visit at all. All she wanted was the money, and this time she told herself that she was just going to get it from Hunter and that'd be it. No conversations, no banter, no touching, no joking, nothing. Just business, like it should have been in the first place.

It really pissed her off how Hunter made her do things without her even noticing. She didn't want to talk to her, or play with her, or make jokes with her, or smile at her and somehow it kept happening. She didn't know how Hunter did it, but this time she wasn't going to fall for it. This time, she was going to do things the way they were supposed to be done.

It was late when Hunter showed up the next time, although Smoker almost missed her regardless. She'd been stuck in traffic for ages on her way home, and it hadn't done her mood any favors. She was hungry and crabby, and wasn't in the mood for dealing with her or her let's-be-friends bullshit. Too tired to actually put real food together, Smoker pulled a cup noodle from her cupboard and waited for the water from her kitchen sink to warm up.

She glanced at her window, casually because she didn't think anyone would be there and didn't expect to see anyone, and sure enough, there was no one there. Just darkness and vague shadows. It was almost a relief, since looking over there and just seeing Hunter staring at her would have been creepy as hell. She still couldn't believe she'd caught her doing that already. Ugh, what was wrong with that kid?

She turned back to her cup noodle, and heard a faint scratching against the window pane. There she was. Smoker thought she'd heard her wandering around the fire escape. Of all the nights to have to deal with her bullshit.

She filled up the styrofoam cup and set it to one side, letting out a sigh before she went to open the window for her. A stiff breeze blew through when it was open, and she tried to resist shivering. She didn't understand why Hunter would want to be running around in this kind of weather doing whatever it was she did, but presumably that's why she kept that sweater on all the time. Smoker had no idea how she could stand it - she hated being cold.

Hunter was moving slower than usual, levering herself inside a little gingerly, and it didn't occur to Smoker that she shouldn't have even let her in until it was too late. After all, she could have just gotten the money from her while she was outside. Damn it.

"I don't understand why you hate doors so much." Smoker shut the window and turned back to her instant soup. "You got something wrong in the head."

"Mm." A brief acknowledgment of her comment, and Hunter stood up from her crouch on the floor and turned to look at her. Smoker didn't have much time to wonder what had happened to her normal irritatingly playful demeanor before she got a good look at her face. Hunter had a black eye, as well as a swollen lip, and one side of her face was slowly bruising blue. There were a few flecks of blood on the front of her sweater, and on the tape wrapped around her chest. "It's easier this way," she said, and coughed.

Smoker hadn't been prepared to see Hunter in such a state, but moreso than that, she was not prepared at all for her intense emotional reaction to it. The shock of it reverberated through her hands, leaving her glad that she hadn't been holding her soup at the time since she probably would have dropped it, and her heart started pounding in her ears. All at once she felt incredibly tense, like every muscle was strained and tight, like it could halt the unpleasant sinking sensation in her gut. Who did this to her, and why? What kind of psycho would just beat up a random girl? Was she okay? She didn't look like she was in the best shape, that was for sure.

Her mind briefly conjured an image of someone punching Hunter in the face, which made her feel sick and tremble slightly and she wasn't sure why, and that was followed by a feeling completely unfamiliar to her, something she couldn't exactly identify, something that made her want to lock all the windows and doors so no one could get in and make her sit down so she could get some ice on her eye and maybe a bandage for her nose, that made her want to find the person who'd done this and make them pay, and she didn't know what that meant, or why she felt that way. She barely knew her, the two of them barely knew each other, she didn't care about her or what happened to her and knowing Hunter it was probably her fault or something, and she didn't care about her and she had no reason to feel that way, but all of her protests paled in comparison to the visceral strength of what she felt. But she couldn't let Hunter know that, she'd rather die than have her know, and she struggled to try and regain her cool exterior.

"What the hell happened to you?" She tried to keep her voice even, but it came out with more intensity than she'd intended. Thankfully Hunter didn't seem to notice, and she just shrugged.

"Got in a fight." Like it wasn't a big deal. "Happens sometimes."

"With who?" Smoker furrowed her brow, irritated at how flippant Hunter was being about it in comparison to how intensely she felt about seeing her this way, and the realization that it might have been _concern_ that dogged her only made her feel angrier. "Don't know many windows that punch back."

"It wasn't a window." Hunter turned away from her a little, putting her hands in the pouch of her sweater.

"Who was it?"

"Just some guy. You don't know him. It's not a big deal."

" _You_ know him, then?" Did Hunter have an angry ex?

"No," Hunter said, apparently annoyed at the question for some reason. "I told you, it's nothing."

"Then why'd he work you over?" And why wasn't Hunter more forthcoming about this? Usually she couldn't pry Hunter off her with a crowbar, and now when Smoker was actually interested and invested in what happened, she wasn't giving her anything. It sort of pissed her off.

"I dunno, we had an argument, didn't like my face, who gives a shit." Each answer getting more terse, and she was shifting back and forth from foot to foot. "It doesn't matter. It's not the first time."

"The first time you been beat up?" Maybe this was related to her race or something? That hadn't really occurred to her, but maybe it was a possibility. Shit, she had no idea, really. Maybe that was why Hunter was so reticent about it.

"I don't get beat up!" Hunter snapped, and then her voice evened out again. Apparently that was a sore spot for her. "Not my first fight, and I won, so whatever."

"You get into fights a lot?"

"What are you, my mom?" And she'd actually said that to Hunter herself not so long ago. Damn it, she probably remembered her doing that and said that on purpose to spite her. "He had it coming."

If he'd left her looking like this and she'd won, she could imagine. It was more satisfying a thought then she would have guessed, and knowing that Hunter had put up a fight and won her altercation was something of a comfort. The more she thought about it, the more some other emotion began mingling with her current weird jumble, some other feeling she wasn't familiar with and when she got close (was she _proud_ of her?) she veered away and condemned the idea as stupid. Which it was.

She had to keep her distance, not let on that she felt any of this to her or she'd never hear the end of it, and frankly she shouldn't have been feeling at all anyway. She didn't want to give these unwarranted and bizarre emotions any validation, and she tried her best to keep her voice casual and uninterested, dismissive even. "You look like you got hit with a train." Smoker put a hand on her hip.

"You should see the other guy." Almost a smile on her there, although it had a distinctly different edge to it than she was used to.

She couldn't see her whole face from her current angle, but the glimpses she caught of her skin still triggered sharp upswings of emotion, like she was being hit herself. She hated seeing that, seeing blood on her face. "Don't you have any Band-Aids?"

"He jumped me on my way here." Hunter gave her a sidelong look, and this time she wasn't smiling. That alone was unusual for her. "I didn't have time to go home."

So apparently she did have a home. Somewhere. Although she hadn't exactly said what her home was. Smoker sighed, loudly and in a way that she hoped would convey how annoyed (and nothing else) she was by this entire thing, and she turned back to her cabinets. Maybe it'd be easier if she wasn't looking at her. "So you get worked over by a thug and you come straight _here_?" She opened a drawer and rifled through it. "You got any brains at all, kid?"

"I'm not a kid." With more irritation than usual, and Smoker paused for a moment at that. Did she really not like it when she called her that? Not that Smoker was planning on stopping or anything, but it was strange that she seemed so bothered by it now. Hunter actually had seemed kind of on edge all night. Maybe that came with getting in some street brawl with a random guy. She had no idea. That, thankfully, wasn't an area she had a lot of experience in. "I told you I'd pay you back, so I'm doin' it." Hunter sniffed. "I told you, you can trust me."

"You couldn't wait until tomorrow?" _So I don't have to deal with this?_ Where the hell did she put them? Smoker opened another drawer.

"No," Hunter said, deliberately and with more force than usual, which made Smoker pause. This seemed familiar... that's right, from their last meeting when Smoker had likewise snapped at her. Kid held a grudge, apparently. Figures. "I can't."

"Whatever." There, she found what she was looking for, and she pulled it out and shut the drawer. Smoker held up the bandages, shaking the tin to make a rattling noise. "Here, how many you want?"

"What?" Hunter turned to face her completely now, blinking in surprise. Smoker leaned back against her counter, trying her best to make it clear that she wasn't doing this because she was worried or anything. Because she wasn't. This was just common sense, and all too often it fell to Smoker to be the sensible one in situations with other people. It wasn't her fault that so many people never thought things through. Hunter was lucky that she'd met up with someone who had their head on straight.

"How many you want?" Smoker said again, with a bit of an edge to it since she didn't feel like she should have had to repeat herself. Some people just didn't know how to listen. "Probably got about ten left."

"I don't want any." Hunter frowned at her, clearly upset and Smoker blinked at that. She'd startled Hunter before, caught her off-guard with a smart comment, teased her and gotten her to look a little annoyed, but this was notably different. So far, Hunter had been almost unfailingly and obnoxiously friendly towards her, all smiles and grins and pawing at her begging her to play, and Smoker shooed her away with one foot, and that was how things tended to work. Now Hunter looked angry at her, honestly offended, and it was such a change in her normal demeanor that she wasn't sure how to react. Sure, Hunter had been mad at her before when they'd first met, but the circumstances then had been pretty different. Why was she giving her the stinkeye now? "I don't need 'em."

She couldn't help her reaction to such a stupid statement - Smoker crossed her arms, half-closed her eyes, raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she said, deadpan and skeptical.

"Yeah, really," Hunter snapped back at her, not the smirky joking response that Smoker had been expecting at all. In fact, what she'd said only seemed to have made her angrier, although she had no idea why. "I can take care of myself, thanks."

Why the hell was Hunter angry at her? It wasn't like Smoker had been the one who'd thumped her around. God, the kid didn't make any sense at all. She didn't get it, and it didn't make her feel any more kindly towards her. It was her fault that she felt so tangled up anyway to begin with, what was her problem? "Don't look like you been doing a good job of that so far." _The hell, kid?_

"This isn't- I don't- I can take care of myself!" Hunter said, louder this time, and she clenched her fists at her side, glaring at Smoker as best she could with her one swollen eye. Again, not at all the reaction she'd been expecting. Before Hunter had always seemed quick to tease and joke when Smoker hit a sore spot, apparently willing and happy to play their games of verbal tennis instead of actually get upset. Why she was so angry with Smoker, who hadn't even done anything wrong, was a mystery to her.

Christ, this was the last thing she needed tonight. She could really use a cigarette now, and she'd left her pack in the other room. Great. She brushed some hair from her face, trying not to roll her eyes. Hunter's inexplicable fury only made her feel angry in response, the nonsensicalness of it galling. This probably wasn't the best way to defuse the situation, but somehow Smoker couldn't bring herself to care. "Again, don't really look like it right now."

"Fuck you!" Hunter said, her voice still raised, and that took Smoker aback. "I don't- this doesn't- I can take care of myself, it's none of your fucking business! Just drop it!"

"The hell's your problem?" Smoker said out loud, although she didn't intend to. Shit. She held up a hand in an effort to placate her, still not sure what it was that was setting her off. All she did was offer her a fucking Band-Aid! Why the hell was she so mad at her? God, why couldn't Hunter make the least bit of sense sometimes? "I'm not the one who roughed you up, why you mad at me?" And again, that was something that might have been better left unsaid, but it was too late now.

"I wasn't- it was a _fight_ , not- I don't even want to talk about it anymore." Hunter turned away from her a little, still obviously furious and even shaking a little, and had the situation been different Smoker might have mentioned how ridiculous that expression looked on her face when her eye was all puffed up. "It's not your fucking problem."

"Christ, I don't even want it to be, I was just offering you a goddamn Band-Aid." Frustrated by her irrational behavior, she grabbed her cup of soup and began walking to her living room, tossing the tin of bandages on the table none-too-lightly. "Try to help you and you bite my head off, what the fuck ever. Go ahead and bleed to death, see if I care." And she could tell that her soup was cold by how it felt in her hand. Goddammit.

"I'm not- it's not even that bad- it's none of your business anyway!" Hunter still seemed intent on fighting with her, and while normally Smoker didn't find it worth it to engage, something about the sheer stupidity of the entire situation kept making it a tempting prospect, and one that was hard to avoid. "I've done this before, it's not- it doesn't even hurt, I don't need your stupid Band-Aids, I'm fine."

"Then don't fucking take them! I'm not forcing 'em down your goddamn throat!" Smoker snapped back at her, and her irritation at having to reheat her dinner because Hunter was stupid didn't improve her mood any. What the hell was wrong with her? "Go ahead and get beat up in alleyways if that's what you want, I don't give a shit."

"I wasn't beat up!" Shouting at her now. "It was a fight, it's different! It was a fight and I won, stop- I wasn't beat up! This isn't-" Struggling for words. "It wasn't even a contest, I won, it was a fight and I _won_ , I wasn't- I didn't get _beat up_ , okay, I beat _him_ up-"

"And what, you give _yourself_ that shiner? Christ, wouldn't surprise me with how stupid you're being. If this is how you take care of yourself, I don't know how you're still alive." Smoker set her soup down, wondering briefly if she could put it in a bowl and reheat it in the microwave that way, and she felt a sudden rise in heat near her. She turned around to find that Hunter was now only inches away, glaring up at her with all her strength, anger radiating off her in palpable warm waves.

"I don't need your help!" she said, loudly. "I don't need _any_ one's help, so back off!" The look on her face, the tone in her voice, her body posture, all of it had a clear message - _drop it now or you'll regret it_.

Hunter had demonstrated her strength the last time they'd met, and no doubt expected Smoker to give up, to yield to her in the face of it. Trying to intimidate her out of continuing the conversation.

Smoker had never been one for quailing in the face of conflict, and if Hunter thought she could get her to submit just by flexing some muscle, she was dead wrong. Smoker did not back down easily, and she definitely wasn't going to do so for her.

"You first." Smoker gritted her teeth.

They stared at each other, a silent test of wills, and Smoker's reluctance to do as she expected apparently only incensed Hunter further.

"I've got in fights before, and I always win. This is nothing. I can take care of myself." Hunter growled at her, baring her teeth. Smoker glared down at her, for a moment briefly considering trying to be tactful, trying to look at things from Hunter's point of view but it was quickly swept away by the fact that Hunter was trying to intimidate her, Hunter thought she could push her around, Hunter had turned on her when she was just trying to help her, and she was so _goddamn stupid_ -

"Good, 'cause I'm not takin' care of such a damn fool." Smoker kept her gaze, pulling herself up to her full height so she could better look down at her. "I got better things to do with my time."

Hunter stared up at her for a few moments, eyes tight with fury, and when she spoke, her words were short and deliberate. More a statement than a question. "Like what?"

Of all the fucking nerve. _Of all the fucking nerve_. That was it, she wasn't playing nice anymore. She'd let her in her house, offered her help and actually been worried and got this in return, and the fucking audacity of it was almost unbelievable. She raised a hand, and watched Hunter tense in preparation.

"You asked me once to tell you what I knew about you, you remember? 'Less you took too many knocks to the head in that fight you 'won'. So fine, here's what I know about you." She poked Hunter in the chest. "You're a damn fool, you're proud, you're stubborn, you're stupid, and you don't make any sense. You're the most selfish person I've ever met, you're arrogant, you got no social skills- I just wanted to help you, and you- you're the most obnoxious, self-centered, ungrateful little _brat_ I've ever met."

Hunter grabbed her wrist with one hand, her grip so tight it was painful, yanked her hand away from her chest and she could see her eyes shining somewhat with fury, her lip trembling and she opened her mouth to say something, but Smoker cut her off midword.

"And I hate the fact I- I was stupid enough to even offer the damn Band-Aids to you in the first place. So fuck you too."

Smoker jerked her hand to one side, trying to break Hunter's grip, and she let her go. She turned her back to her, heading for her bedroom, completely done with the conversation and with Hunter and with everything.

She heard rustling behind her, and, aware of how angry Hunter was, she turned back to look at her in case she was thinking of attacking her. She caught a glimpse of Hunter pulling her hand out of her pouch before she threw what she was holding in her face.

Smoker winced, raised her arms to protect herself, but whatever it was didn't hit her like she'd expected. She opened her eyes, lowered her arms and looked at the ground and saw dollar bills.

"Here, take your stupid money!" Hunter shouted at her. "It's all you care about!"

Briefly she thought about taking it, like she was supposed to, like Hunter expected her to, but she still felt angry, contrary, desperate for a way to turn this back around against her, and so angry that Hunter had reacted like this when really, all she'd wanted to do was help. The most innocuous offer, practically nothing, just because she cared about the stupid little pest and she'd turned on her, and even when Hunter was so angry, glaring at her and struggling visibly to keep her emotions in check and not let her eyes water any further, her black eye and swollen lip and bruise just made Smoker feel something that she didn't want to feel, the vulnerability of it, of _her_ yanking at that tight knot in her stomach and she just- she just wanted to fix it, help her and fuck her for feeling that way, and fuck Hunter for making her feel that way, and-

"Fucking keep it!" Smoker shouted back at her, emotions working more into her voice than she'd wanted. "Go buy your own fucking bandages with it!"

She turned her back on her, not wanting to look at her anymore, and she went into her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She slumped down on the other side, furious in a way she hadn't been in what felt like years, and she wished she could just focus on that part, the part she knew, instead of all the other things that had tangled into it.

She waited on her side of the door, wondering what Hunter would do now. She didn't hear a rejoinder to her final comment. Maybe Hunter couldn't think of anything. Maybe she'd take her advice and stop being so stupid and take care of herself. Then at least something might have gone right tonight.

After some time, she heard some vague rustling through the door, and then the sound of the window opening and closing. She waited some time afterwards, just in case she might have still been lurking around, before she left her bedroom to survey the damage. She hadn't heard Hunter break anything, but Hunter had been furious.

Everything was in its proper place, like Hunter hadn't even been there at all. Her soup was still on the counter.

And the money was still on the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They watch a movie, and the debt is repaid.

Hunter expected sympathy from her friends when she explained what happened, understanding of how angry and right she'd been about the entire thing.

But sometimes, her friends were unfailingly supportive, and sometimes, they pulled no punches when she did something wrong.

Hunter told them what happened, told them how angry she was, how angry she was that she'd even been jumped by that guy in the first place (that, at least, definitely got their support and vows of eventual revenge), how angry she was that he'd managed to land a few lucky hits, _lucky_ hits, hits that never should have connected because she was good at this. She worked hard, she worked hard every day to prove herself to everyone, to support herself, to take care of herself. The world around her refused to take her seriously, didn't see her like she thought she should be seen, and she resolved some time ago to force it to or die trying. Even her friends had been much the same at first, refusing to believe she could keep up with them, that she'd be able to do the same things they could do, that she could stand up to them and refuse to back down, and she'd fought and struggled and beat them at every turn until she earned their respect, battered and bruised but she'd earned it. There were always battles, some kind of struggle, some obstacle that she'd overcome. And she would overcome it, she would always overcome it. She always won.

People fought her, people thought they could try to push her around, people thought she was weak and time and time again she proved herself, she went through the fire scorched but alive and she'd keep doing it, she'd keep surviving and she'd keep prevailing, and that's how things worked. She won fights, no matter what they entailed. She won, she tried hard and she always won. She won her fight against that guy, even if he got some hits in on her. Collateral damage that was almost impossible to avoid, but she'd won.

And she was angry that he'd even attacked her, angry that he thought he could beat her, angry that he'd landed anything on her, and when she came and saw Smoker, when she looked her in the face and saw the pity in her eyes, it just made her all the more furious. Smoker didn't know her, she didn't know the context, she didn't know her history, she didn't know anything about her, but she acted like she did, she reacted to her wounds like she knew all the facts, like she knew that Hunter was a victim, Hunter was a loser, Hunter needed help because she couldn't take care of herself. And she didn't, she absolutely didn't, and it just, it just made her so angry that Smoker thought like that, that Smoker thought she was weak. Hunter was strong, and just because she didn't understand the situation, Smoker thought she was weak and deigned to give her her pity, like she should be grateful, and she was wrong, she was so wrong and she just couldn't stand the idea of Smoker thinking that about her. She just couldn't stand it.

And she was angry afterwards, and she went to her friends for advice, and they told her what she didn't want to hear - that Smoker had offered her her help because she cared about her, which was exactly what Hunter had been trying to do in the first place. And Hunter had turned her away. Hunter wasn't in the mood to hear that, so she argued with them for a while until she got frustrated, then left them as well to dwell in her resentment. No one understood.

A day or so went by, allowing her anger to cool and the idea that maybe she hadn't handled that situation properly to take root, and Jordan called her. No doubt the others had probably asked him to do it, since he'd always been a good mediator, and it was hard for any of them to really get angry at him. They chatted about nothing for a while, until Hunter felt a little better and was smiling again, and Jordan reiterated what they'd told her a few nights ago. Maybe Hunter was right in that Smoker thought she'd lost, maybe she did pity her a little, but Smoker still tried to help her. Smoker saw her in trouble, saw her in pain, and reached out to her. Held her hand out to her, and the most likely explanation was because she cared about her.

And after having some time to think about it, Hunter gradually began to think that maybe her friends had a point. They'd told her, more than once, that she was not the most self-aware person, and that she wasn't really very good at the whole empathy thing and definitely not any good where feelings were involved ("retarded" at them, her friends were fond of saying, as a matter of fact), and this seemed like another one of those situations.

Except this was a bit more serious than some bruised egos among her friends that'd get smoothed over over time. She'd been trying to _make_ friends with Smoker, trying very very hard to get beyond her defenses and befriend her, and this was not the same thing. She didn't know how to fix a relationship at this stage.

Jordan didn't really know either, and as the scope of what she may have done dawned on her, she confided to him that she was kind of scared that she'd really fucked things up this time. He reassured her that she'd find some way to fix it, because she always did. That's what she did, right? She won.

And that was true.

She spent some time talking to him, and while she eventually came up with a plan, it wasn't a very complicated or solid one, and probably not even a very good one. But it was something.

And even for something so simple, it still seemed so hard to do. Hunter was not used to apologizing to someone, and she still thought that given the circumstances, she wasn't entirely unjustified in getting upset. But she had misinterpreted Smoker, probably.

So she should probably apologize for that, at least.

Maybe, maybe her apology would give her a chance to talk to her a little before she shut her out. She'd thrown too much money at her last time, too angry to think to separate the fifty she'd brought with her from the fifty she'd taken from the guy after she'd won, and now she was down to her last payment. She wasn't going to have another chance. She had one shot, one more visit to Smoker, and she had to fix things. She was determined to do this, and Hunter always did what she intended to do.

An apology, and a gift. Not much, given how most of her money went to her, but it was something that'd hopefully take the edge off. She'd seen Smoker buying alcohol when they'd gone grocery shopping, so she knew that she did drink. Hunter'd say she was sorry, she'd maybe try to explain herself, she'd ask if she wanted a drink, say it was free. Give her her money. And if Smoker hadn't thrown her out yet, she'd offer to watch a movie with her, like she'd wanted to do originally. She could tell her her movies were great, or something, or just pretend it was great even if it wasn't, and maybe Smoker wouldn't hold it against her. Maybe Smoker would forgive her, and then they could go back to being friends. Or at least, back to Hunter trying to be her friend.

She felt nervous when she headed to Smoker's place that day, more nervous than she could remember being before about almost anything. Even leaping from rooftop to rooftop didn't seem quite as daunting as facing her again. She and Smoker had more in common than she would have originally guessed, and that made her pretty sure that Smoker wouldn't have let go of her anger so easily. It would be very easy for Smoker to take her money and then slam the window shut on her, and never open it again.

She had one chance to do this.

Smoker was cooking again when she came by, standing by her stove. She was wearing her usual flannel overshirt, with the sleeves rolled up and her hair tied back. This time, Hunter didn't spend too much time staring at her, mindful of how she had not appreciated that before. She took a deep breath and tapped on the glass.

Smoker turned to look at her, and Hunter expected her to look angry, furious at her for coming back. Instead, a few different emotions flickered across her face, most of them too quickly for her to identify. But not all of them were anger. She came over and opened the window, her neutral expression occasionally wavering into irritation and... something else less severe.

There was an awkward pause as Hunter stayed outside where she was, and Smoker stayed inside, and the two of them stared at each other through the open window.

"You got my money?" Smoker said eventually.

"I'm sorry," Hunter said.

Smoker blinked, clearly startled by her statement. She apparently couldn't think of any quick response to that, but Hunter didn't want to give her the chance to say that she didn't care.

"I was sort of mad last time, but it wasn't... it wasn't your fault. I wasn't mad at you... mostly. It's... I dunno, it's complicated. I had a lot of shit going on. I shouldn'ta got mad at you though. I mean, you were just trying to help, right?" A tinge of hopefulness had worked into her voice near the end, which she hadn't intended. Maybe Smoker wouldn't notice.

Smoker stared at her, regarding her, and it wasn't with her normal bored or disapproving stare. She seemed confused, much like she had been before when Hunter told her what she'd liked about her. She seemed to be at a loss for what to say for a while, but Hunter couldn't think of anything else to say herself, so she waited.

"Why'd you blow your top at me anyway?" Carefully.

"I dunno, it's like..." Hunter looked down. She didn't really want to tell her, but she should probably be as forthright about this as possible. If she explained it maybe it'd make more sense. "It's... people don't think I can... do a lot of things. But I can. I work really hard so I can fight and run better than anyone else, but people still don't think I can do it. They look at me and they think they know me, like I'm all weak or something and they can just..." It was hard to put it into words. Hunter looked back up at her, and Smoker was staring at her intently, eyebrows raised. "I was so mad when I got here... some of the stuff you said, it was like you were underestimating me just like everyone else does, and it just... it just made me so angry."

Saying it out loud just made her feel embarrassed, frustrated at her own emotions and how she felt, the negativity of it but she knew this was probably the right thing to do, but all the same she still wanted to take it back. She didn't want to talk about it anymore, she hated talking about her feelings and herself and being introspective, so she just stayed quiet and hoped that Smoker would say something instead.

"I see," Smoker said, and the rough edges around her voice were gone. "That'd explain it."

Another awkward silence ensued between the two, and Hunter shifted back and forth a little uncomfortably, and she noticed Smoker shuddering every now and then when a breeze went by.

"So... I'm sorry, I guess," Hunter said again, and she hoped it didn't sound as sulky as she felt, and looked up at her. "Can I come in?"

Smoker considered the question for what felt like minutes, far too long for Hunter and maybe this was the final test of her patience, her endurance. Smoker stared at her, thinking about it, shifting the cigarette from one side of her mouth to the other, and finally she sighed and turned away.

"Alright."

God, the relief was almost overwhelming.

She didn't need a second invitation (and didn't want to give Smoker a chance to change her mind) and she climbed in as quickly as possible, landing rather ungracefully with a thud inside as a result. She stood up fast, smoothly turning to shut the window to try and cover up her lack of grace. When she turned to see if Smoker had seen, she found that she had returned to her cooking, silent and focused. Like Hunter wasn't there. Maybe she didn't know where to go from here.

Come to think of it, Hunter didn't really know either.

She set down her bag, briefly lost herself in a mental mantra of _what do I do now_ and _what am I supposed to do_ , and then eventually sidled up to her so she could at least do _some_ thing.

"Whatcha making?" 'Cause it was something she could say.

"Dinner," Smoker said, in that terse way where she didn't want to have a conversation. She turned her head away from her to breathe out some smoke. "You're not getting any."

"I didn't say anything about wanting any," Hunter said, although not with as playful an air as she might have otherwise. She still wasn't sure how Smoker felt about her at the moment after all. She'd let her in, but apart from that... it'd probably be best to play it safe until she had a better idea of where she stood with her.

Hunter pointed at the skillet in question and said the first thing that came into her head that didn't involve feelings or awkwardness. "But it's kind of weird that you got two in there."

"What?"

"You got two things of fish in there." Hunter looked at her, now finding herself legimately curious in spite of herself, and Smoker kept her eyes focused on the skillet. "You gonna eat both of 'em?"

Smoker didn't say anything.

"'Cause it doesn't look like you eat much."

And Smoker's eyes shifted, away from the skillet and off towards the opposite wall. Deliberately avoiding eye contact with her, and she frowned a little, like she was wrestling with a particularly difficult problem.

She made a vaguely irritated noise under her breath before speaking, her voice low and raspy. "I got too much last time. Wanted to get it cooked before it went bad."

Which sounded plausible enough, although it still didn't satisfy her for some reason. "So you can't finish it then?"

"I'll have the rest tomorrow." Smoker still wasn't looking at her.

"...Can I have it?"

That got her attention, and their eyes met again. Smoker didn't look angry... just mildly surprised by the question. Hunter was almost surprised herself that she'd actually said it this time. She'd thought it more than once whenever Smoker was eating in front of her. There was no taking it back now, but at least this presented an opening for her plan. It wouldn't be the _most_ awkward conversational transition she'd ever had.

"I brought some beers with me." Hunter gestured towards her bag on the floor. Maybe Smoker would feel a little more kindly towards her request if she knew Hunter had something to offer her in return. "We can share." That came out more like a pleading question than she would have liked.

Smoker let out a loud hum of thought, a slight grimace on her lips, and she didn't say anything. She turned back to her food for a brief moment, then turned to apparently search for something, and then turned back to her, all in a series of somewhat quick, jerky movements that seemed somewhat uncharacteristic of her. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"Might as well, if this is the last time," Smoker said, clearly reluctantly. "But you say anything about how it tastes, I'm going to pop you in the kisser, kid."

Hunter couldn't help but smile at that, jarring at first but a reminder of who she was talking to, that Smoker was still talking to her after all. She was here, with her, even after fucking up like she had. She could do this.

"I never say no to a free lunch," Hunter said, trying to keep her voice light in hopes her mood would follow. They hadn't really discussed their fight any further, but Hunter really didn't want to anyway. Maybe if they just kept acting like it didn't happen, she wouldn't have to deal with it or think about it anymore. It could just be over forever. That'd be fantastic. "So don't worry."

"I bet." Smoker rolled her eyes, shaking her head just slightly. "Should I just dump this on the floor for you?"

"Hey!" That stung a little still. What was that supposed to mean? She told herself to shake it off, it wasn't worth getting hurt by it right now. That didn't mean she couldn't tease her back though. "Not unless it'll make it taste better."

"I'm warning you." Smoker shook a hand at her as she reached into a cabinet with the other. "I really don't want to hear it today."

"Why?" Curiousity replaced the light bruising of her ego, and Hunter took the plate she held out to her.

"Just been kind of a shitty day to begin with." Smoker sighed a little, and she shook her head. "Bah, I don't want to talk about it." A moment. "Landsakes, put the plate down, you're just going to make a mess that way."

"What?" Hunter blinked at her.

"You want this fish or not?"

She set the plate down on the counter, where Smoker could then move one of the fillets there to her satisfaction. Hunter didn't really know a lot about food, except that it could be delicious and eating it was great, but the fish really smelled good when she could get a whiff of it over the omnipresent smoke smell. It had a light buttery or oily looking sauce over it, presumably whatever it was that Smoker cooked it in. She really had no idea how any of this worked. Smoker might as well have pulled it out of a top hat.

"Sheesh, you ain't drooling, are you?" Smoker took her own plate, raising an eyebrow at her. "Can't be that hard up for food."

"It takes a lot to keep these muscles going!" Hunter thumped her chest. "Tho' I guess you wouldn't know much about that."

Smoker rolled her eyes again and sat down, and Hunter set her plate beside her, as opposed to the opposite side of the table. She didn't even think about why she was doing it until it was already done, or how Smoker would react, and when she looked over at her, she was giving her a familiar, vaguely wary look. Not entirely sure what she was doing.

"Oh, you want the drinks?" Hunter waved a hand at her bag, hoping that maybe a change of subject might alleviate the awkwardness a little. Smoker thought about it for a moment, then shrugged.

"Sure, whatever. Might as well take the edge off."

She went and got them, and when she handed one to her, Smoker took it with a grunt that didn't sound like much of a thank you. She wasn't that surprised by it though; she had a feeling that Smoker was still pissed at her, as much as she didn't want her to be. And the fact she probably had the right to be just made Hunter feel stupid and awful. It'd be so much easier if they could just pretend it never happened.

Smoker put out her cigarette in one of the ashtrays on the table before she began eating, which got Hunter wondering how many ashtrays or ashtray-equivalents were scattered around the place to begin with. Probably a lot, she decided, and wondered if she should take a count later so she could tease Smoker about it as she put the first forkful of the fish in her mouth.

She liked fish, sure, but she never really gave it much thought. And someone like Smoker, they didn't look like they were exactly a world class chef. Cigarettes had that effect on the tongue, she remembered hearing about that in school. She expected something tolerable, maybe a bit ashy, maybe a bit bland or overdone, something like that. Unremarkable, but edible, which would be the important part. She was not prepared for what was actually in her mouth. She'd never had fish that practically dissolved on her tongue like this before, and the sauce that came with it was savory and strong, so buttery that it almost made her cough, but with a lemon tang behind it that somehow both emphasized its intensity and toned it down just enough. When it hit her she was almost too startled to chew; she'd never had fish that tasted anything like this before. Shit, she wasn't sure she'd ever had anything that tasted like this before. It was so rich it didn't feel real, and she gulped it down before she even thought to appreciate it any.

She stared down at the rest of the fish on her plate, like she was expecting it to give her any answers, then looked over at Smoker, who was eating her own while reading the paper with an air of total nonchalance, like this was something she did every day. Could she not taste how amazing this was? How could she not?

Well if she couldn't, Hunter certainly could, and the bite she'd had only whetted her appetite. This was no time for forks. She set it down and leaned down over her plate, grabbing the fish with her hands. It even felt soft but enticingly firm underneath her fingers as she took a huge bite.

She was chewing happily when apparently Smoker finally noticed. "What the- really? _Really_? You sure you aren't starving, kid?"

Hunter would have said "not anymore" but her mouth was full, and frankly eating was more important than anything else now. She wasn't sure she'd ever taste anything this good again in her whole life, and she was going to make the most of it.

Smoker made a scoffing noise under her breath, and she took a sip of her beer. "You choke on a bone, you're on your own, kid."

Frankly, if she died of fish overdose, she wouldn't even mind at this point. Hunter couldn't eat fast enough, but unfortunately all portions had to come to an end. She was left empty handed all too soon, much to her disappointment, although she could at least lick her fingers. She pointedly ignored the grimace Smoker gave her at that. Another benefit of eating with her hands, although she did have to admit, the underlying hints of dirt and sweat didn't improve it. A small price to pay, really.

Even so, her fingers were clean all too soon. She could still taste some remnants of it on her lips, and when she looked down at the plate in hopes that magically some more may have appeared while she wasn't watching, she could still see some sauce on its surface...

"Cripes, are you licking my damn plate?" Smoker reached over. "Give me that, that's disgusting."

"Too late, it's mine." Hunter angled herself away from her, determined not to give up something so delicious so easily. "I'll wash it later."

"The hell you will." Smoker was giving her such a look, although she'd apparently given up on getting it away from her. "I'm going to burn the thing. God _damn_ , kid."

It was all gone all too soon, and she set it back down with a pleased sigh. Smoker was still staring at her, looking more weirded out by the minute, so she gave her a grin in return. "So where'd you get that anyway? You didn't make it, right? It's too good."

"Course I made it. You probably watched me make it, you creep." Smoker sniffed and gave her that vaguely haughty look, much like she had when Hunter had been mocking that band she liked. She was so weird.

"No way. No way, you can't make stuff that good. I've never had anything that good in my whole life."

"Tch." Smoker waved a hand, and she looked away. If Hunter didn't know her better, she could almost swear she could see the tips of her ears reddening just slightly. Her voice had that same kind of gruff awkwardness as before when Hunter had complimented her on her sense of humor. It was sort of amusing in a way, that she could be so transparent about this kind of stuff. She really didn't know how to take a compliment. No doubt she wasn't used to them, which was a bit of a sad thought. Hunter leaned closer to her, grinning all the wider at her now that Smoker looked so uncomfortable.

"It's true! Did you not just see me lick that plate? That was amazing."

"I wish I could _un_ see it. I liked that plate." She turned to her own food, as that gave her a convenient excuse to not have to look Hunter in the face. She was still grumbling quietly, almost to herself. "It's just fish."

"The best fish I ever had!" Complimenting her got her ruffled in an interesting way, and would hopefully convince her that that fight before was really nothing, that Hunter liked her after all and her shouting at her that night was just a one-time fluke and it was all true anyway so Hunter saw no reason to stop. Why show restraint now? "Where'd you learn how to do that?" A moment, and Hunter gasped in realization. "Is that your job? Are you a chef? Is that your super secret identity?" It all made sense now!

"No." Smoker kept her eyes down, looking all the more awkward with each passing word. If she kept at it, she might even make her blush about it, which would make everything up to this point totally worth it. Smoker, blushing! It'd be the end of the world. "I've never met anyone who was so easily impressed. It's nothing."

"If it's nothing, I'll take that one off your hands for you..." Hunter reached for Smoker's plate, and she pulled it away.

"Ah ah, no, this is mine. I shouldn't have even gave you the other one. I knew I'd regret it." That got her back to her more typical mood (a little disappointing, as Hunter was enjoying teasing her), and she pointed at Hunter with her fork. "Ugh, go wash your hands already. You're getting it everywhere."

Hunter got up and did so, if only because it was getting a little late and she wasn't sure if Smoker would ever finish her dinner if she kept bothering her, and she did want to try and watch something with her before she went to sleep. She was curious about the kind of movies Smoker had, in spite of herself. She'd already surprised her tonight with how well she could cook. Hunter always thought that she didn't judge people by appearances, even though people did that to her, but maybe she did do that a little, because Smoker kept doing and being things that she didn't expect. Maybe.

But if her cooking was any indication, Smoker might have had any number of secret skills or talents or hobbies. Maybe her movies would provide some tantalizing clues into her inner self. As it was, Hunter was sure that she wasn't going to get anywhere with her by talking about it. Smoker was really close-mouthed about herself for some weird reason. Originally (and perhaps a little spitefully) Hunter had assumed that was because she didn't have anything to hide. Now she wasn't so sure.

Besides, she was anxious for anything that'd bring them closer together while she still had the chance, and for anything that'd make sure the fight they'd had was well-forgotten and never spoken of again. So far so good, but she wasn't in the clear yet.

Hunter let her eat the rest of her fish in peace, for the most part, although it was extremely tempting to try and swipe it when she wasn't looking. Smoker ate so slowly that she was sure it was probably cold by the time she'd finished, and she wasn't even sure Smoker'd even be able to eat it all by the end of it. She toyed with the last bit of it with her fork, moving it back and forth on her plate like she wasn't sure what to do with it, and considering how it tasted Hunter just couldn't understand that at all. Why wouldn't you want to shove it into your face as fast as possible? Was Smoker's tongue that messed up? How did she make the fish at all then?

She really had no explanation for it, and eventually Smoker told her to stop staring at her while she was eating because it was creeping her out (for _some_ reason), so Hunter decided to wander around her apartment instead and look around. Every now and then Smoker would tell her to stop pacing, or not to touch that, or wonder why she couldn't sit still for two seconds, and she warned her that she wouldn't find her iPod (not that it had occurred to Hunter to look until she'd mentioned it), but it was easy to ignore her or make some teasing jibes back to her in response.

The wallpaper in her kitchen was faded and old, probably a remnant from the old tenants, and the other rooms had similarly bland color schemes. There were a few posters on the walls breaking up the monotony of it all at least; mostly posters of those guys from that band she liked, which made sense. She had a stereo in her living room with a stack of CDs near it... most of them from bands Hunter hadn't heard of, or had heard of and didn't care about. It was a nice stereo though, nicer than she might have guessed, and it was in good condition too. She was surprised she didn't have a turntable anywhere.

"Don't touch anything," Smoker said, and Hunter glanced over at her again to see her progress on her dinner. God, how long could it take someone to eat something?

"I'm not." There were several bookshelves pushed against the walls, and she decided to peruse the one beside her TV, the one that had, of all things, a snow globe perched on one shelf. What was that doing there? She couldn't imagine Smoker buying a snow globe or even holding one, and the incongruousness of it was at once both bizarre and hilarious. A _snow globe_? It was hard to believe it was even real. She pulled it down to get a better look at it. Inside the glass ball was a little house on a snowy field with a few trees here and there, nothing that looked particularly interesting or notable. It wasn't even musical. Why did Smoker have this? It was just cheesy junk, something she could probably find at a garage sale for like five bucks. _If_ that. She flipped it so she could look at the bottom to see if there was a price tag, or some kind of dedication. Maybe it was a gift or something and she hadn't thrown it away yet.

"I said don't touch anything," Smoker said again, and Hunter blinked a little. That hadn't even crossed her mind when she'd picked it up, and she put it back. It flurried busily on the shelf, proof of what she'd been doing.

"I wasn't!" Even though she knew Smoker saw her do it, and she was sure Smoker was rolling her eyes at that. She didn't follow up on it, so either she didn't care or had just given up. Hunter added "likes snow globes" to her mental list of weird things about Smoker that made no sense (although she was tempted to just add "is Smoker" and then just forego the list entirely), and she kept looking around.

When she'd first come into the apartment, she'd registered the bookshelves as "bookshelves" and didn't give much thought to their contents, but now that she was looking at them, each of them seemed filled to capacity with books. She sure had a lot of them, and that was understandable enough. Someone who spent so much time by themselves probably read a lot. What else were you going to do with yourself after all? "Where'd you get all these books?"

"Wherever."

"Lord of the Rings?" Hunter looked over the titles. She gave her a sidelong look, her voice exaggeratedly suspicious. "Are you a nerd?"

"You even know how to read?" As she lit up a new cigarette.

Hunter humphed a little at that. Of course she did, she just didn't spend a lot of her time doing it. She had buildings to climb and fun to have, unlike some people. As such, she didn't recognize a lot of the titles on the shelves. Some of them she knew had been made into movies, but a lot of them didn't ring any bells at all. She'd been hoping that her books might give her some more insight into Smoker's life, but a lot of the titles were so vague to her they could have been about anything, and she had no memory for authors. Also Smoker told her not to touch anything, so she probably couldn't get away with pulling them all out to look.

She could recognize some fantasy books (what else could things with "dragon" or "griffin" in the title be?), some things that definitely sounded like crime books by the prevalence of "murder" in their titles, some science-fiction books, a bunch she couldn't easily classify, and some of what were probably biographies. There were also a few art books and ones that probably looked like they were about music of some kind, and more than a few (a lot, actually) that had "musical" somewhere in their title or subtitle. One of the books was even covered in orange fur! Did Smoker just grab every book she could get? None of this added up into any kind of coherent picture for her, or at least, not one that gelled with the picture she had of her currently. This had just left her more confused about her than ever, and she hadn't even looked in her bedroom yet.

She could hear Smoker putting her dish in the sink as Hunter turned her attention to the row of DVDs in front of her TV. No VHS tapes, much to Hunter's surprise, or at least, none out in the open. The DVDs were mostly organized, although there was a suspicious pile of disks sitting outside their cases on top of what must have been her DVD player.

"You going to give me my money already, or are you having too much fun snooping?" Smoker said, walking into the room and sitting on the couch. She rolled down her sleeves before taking a deep drag of her cigarette. She had that same bored look she often had, sort of unimpressed, but that was better than her being mad at her. Maybe she'd forgotten all about what happened after all.

Hunter didn't want to think about giving her her last payment, of ending it just yet, so she said the first thing she could think of that wasn't that. "What kind of movies you got?"

"You sure you can read? You're the one eyeballing 'em."

"I've just never heard of these before." Now that she was actually reading the titles instead of just staring at them while thinking about how this was all going to end. "Well, I've heard of some of them I guess." She pulled out just such a one. "Like this one, uh, West Side Story. That's about gangs or something, right?"

She looked back at Smoker to see her staring at her with wide eyes, like she'd told her she was actually an alien from outer space. She'd never seen her look so confused or startled. "You haven't seen West Side Story?" In the same kind of tone as _You've never seen the sun?_ Hunter felt a little defensive in spite of herself.

"I haven't seen like every movie ever." Hunter looked it over. "And I bet all of these are in black and white anyway. This came out in like... 1961? Did they even have TV back then?"

"Do you not know anything about history?" Smoker stood up and plucked the DVD case out of Hunter's hands, snapping it open. "You are blowing my mind right now, kid, I didn't think anyone could be so deprived. How could you not have seen this?"

"I told you, I don't see every movie that ever gets made." Hunter crossed her arms, still a bit annoyed at how incredulous Smoker seemed. It wasn't a big deal that she hadn't seen some dumb movie! She'd seen lots of movies, just not that particular one. People talked about it a lot, sure, but that didn't mean she was deprived for not seeing it.

"It's not just any movie, it marked a turning point in musical-" Smoker was holding the disc carefully between her fingers, and she cut herself off sharply mid-sentence in a way that Hunter had never heard her do before. She had a look on her face, something not quite how she'd looked in the kitchen when she'd been complimenting her, but a similar kind of awkward... almost a little embarrassed.

"Turning point for what?" Hunter asked, because she was a bit curious now that Smoker hadn't finished her thought.

"Hmph." Smoker grunted, looking away from her with a somewhat frustrated grimace. Hunter got the impression that it wasn't directed at her. She kneeled down to open up the player and put the disk inside. "It's nothing-..." Again, like she was going to continue, and she stopped herself. "This is all we're watching, and it's just because you haven't seen it before, then you're out of here."

Her curiousity had only been enflamed further by how evasive Smoker was being about whatever it was. What was it that she hadn't wanted to talk about, and why? This had to be one of those secret things about her, some secret part of herself, which only made her all the more desperate to know more.

She wasn't quite sure how to ask her though, or how to bring it up. The grouchy look on Smoker's face, and her nearly inaudible mumbling, seemed to indicate that she would not be amenable to talking about it. But Hunter was never good at knowing what questions to ask anyway. Maybe she could find it out some other way, maybe during the movie itself.

It didn't occur to her that she hadn't really asked if they could watch it in the first place. Smoker just went ahead and put it on.

"Should I go turn off the lights?" Hunter didn't really care either way, but maybe Smoker was a traditionalist who wanted to focus all her attention on the movie at hand. Smoker shrugged (which didn't tell her more at all, and Smoker was really good at that), and Hunter was already by the light switch, so she flipped it anyway. Why not.

The light from the TV made it simple enough to navigate her way back to the couch, where Smoker was slouching against the armrest, one arm across the back. The lit end of her cigarette glowed faintly in the dark, and passing cars momentarily illuminated the window on the other side of the room.

She plopped down beside her, and Smoker made a vaguely irritated grunt at how roughly she'd sat down, but didn't say anything. Hunter leaned back with her hands in her pouch, not sure what to expect. It was something about gangs and dancing, maybe. That was the general impression she'd gotten over the years.

After a while of the same image and the soundtrack playing, she had to ask. "Are you sure you got it off the main menu?"

"This is the overture, kid." Again, with that same baffled tone of voice as before. "You really haven't seen any old movies before, have you?"

"Not any with an overture," Hunter said, perhaps a bit sulkily. "It's just music over a picture? Is that really it?"

"It's an overview of the music to come," Smoker said, with that vaguely haughty tone in her voice, and had she looked over at her, no doubt she would have had her eyes closed as she spoke. "Most musicals do that."

"No wonder they're so boring." Hunter rolled her eyes, and then started coughing. She hadn't been looking at her, but Smoker had blown another cloud of smoke in her direction. "Ugh, you want me to watch this or not? My eyes are already stinging bad enough in this smelly old place."

"Leave then if you don't like it," Smoker said, although she didn't blow any more smoke at her at least.

"You're the one who wants me to watch it so bad in the first place."

"You going to talk through this or what?"

Hunter didn't intend to, and she was quiet for a while, but it was hard not to comment when the main characters first appeared.

"Oh wow, are they supposed to be a gang?"

"50s movie gang, yeah." Smoker did sound like she was smiling a little though. When they broke out the ballet moves, Hunter burst out laughing.

"Oh my god, wow! This is totally serious, right?"

"Yup." At least Smoker seemed somewhat aware of how goofy this might have looked, as she didn't seem that defensive. Perhaps a little amused even, if Hunter was reading her tone correctly. "What, you don't think it's realistic? I see this shit go down every day. It's an epidemic."

So Smoker was willing to make fun of the movie with her, huh? Even if it was one that she obviously cared about by how much she wanted Hunter to see it. Interesting! Hunter was happy to roll with that.

The Jets were chasing the Sharks around town, and Hunter couldn't stifle her giggling at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. "Oh man, I have to show this to my friends later. This is hilarious."

"What, are you in a dance gang?"

"Sort of." Not really, but it was too tempting not to say that. Smoker made a "hmph" sound, which could have been impressed or could have been skeptical, it was hard to tell.

"So this happen to you a lot?" As a Jet pirouetted past a Shark.

"All the time. Parkour's a dangerous game."

Already the atmosphere was relaxed, and vaguely Hunter recalled that she was supposed to be complimenting Smoker on her movie taste so she wouldn't be mad at her anymore, but that didn't seem so necessary right now. Smoker seemed pleased enough at bantering with Hunter about the movie, and that was something that Hunter was used to. Honestly, it was hard to imagine watching a movie in complete silence, as she and her friends were always talking over them when they hung out. It was comforting to find out that Smoker could be the same way. It made her feel closer to her, although it was hard for her to put into words exactly why.

The movie continued onwards, Hunter giggling every now and then at all the old slang and weird turns of phrase they used, and it was easy to get lost in the in-between place of the story and music of the movie, and her and Smoker just outside it.

Without thinking about it, she leaned towards Smoker while Tony was singing about Maria, and she rested her head against her bony shoulder. She thankfully had her hood up so it didn't jab her too hard, and she sighed softly.

Of course, Smoker would never let her be so content without putting up a fight, and she rolled her shoulder. "What are you doin', kid?" Softly, and without her usual crabbiness. "Get off."

"Ah c'mon, it's not so bad, is it?" Hunter didn't want to move, and she was heavier than her. Although that didn't make the sensation of Smoker rolling her shoulder any more enjoyable, since it was rather pointy. Maybe if she changed the subject Smoker would forget she was doing it. "This movie explains a lot about you. So that's why you talk funny."

"You got an explanation for why you have no concept of personal space? Or do you do this with everyone?"

"Yup."

"To which question?"

"The last one."

"Everyone? Really?"

"Yup." Hunter pressed up more firmly against her, and Smoker had stopped trying to get her off. "Nobody bitches about it as much as you though."

"Whatever gets you off, freak." She could almost hear Smoker rolling her eyes through her voice. She slouched a little further in her seat, and Hunter slid a little closer to her to get more comfortable. She could feel the tension along Smoker's body, and her fingers drummed on the back of the couch a little nervously, and she mumbled at her once again to get off. In response, Hunter asked her if she'd ever gone dancing on top of a roof like all the Sharks were, and after a moment, Smoker said that of course she did, you didn't? Hunter kept at it, kept her smart (and not so smart) comments coming so Smoker couldn't easily disengage from the conversation, and eventually, Smoker seemed to forget she was lying against her at all. Just like she thought. Smoker just needed to lighten up sometimes. It wasn't like it was a big deal. She did this to her friends all the time and they didn't care.

Hunter had a vague idea that the movie might have had a sad ending, although she wasn't sure going into it what it might have been. As it progressed, she guessed that Tony and Maria weren't going to make it out of this alive, since it seemed like that kind of movie. She wasn't prepared for Riff or Bernardo dying though, and she actually found herself genuinely disappointed that they got knocked off. They'd reminded her a little of her friends, Ray in particular, and as such she wasn't happy to see them go.

Not that she wanted Smoker to know that she'd gotten involved in a dumb old movie like this though, since that'd be pretty lame, so she tried to play it off like no big deal. Still, she couldn't quite keep her voice as even as she liked.

"Aww, Riff died. I liked him." With a little sigh. "And Bernardo too."

"Yeah," Smoker said, practically a non-response by the tone in her voice, and she shifted a little to tap off the ashes from her near-gone cigarette. She hadn't even noticed her light up that one. "Lot of buckets get kicked in this."

The normal humor in her voice was gone. Perhaps to match the serious undertone of Hunter's comment? She wasn't sure. Either way, their jokes tapered off as the movie continued getting more and more depressing. Hunter wasn't sure how Maria could forgive Tony for killing Bernardo. She'd never forgive anyone who killed Ray, even if she loved the guy. Things just seemed to be getting worse and worse, and it wasn't quite as funny as she thought it would be. For something that started so light, it was getting sort of hard to laugh at now.

Smoker, likewise, had become mostly silent.

Finally, it came to the end. Tony was dying in Maria's arms, and they were singing that gooshy song they sang earlier. If Hunter hadn't been such a badass, she might have felt a little moved by it. It was a sad scene, sure, not that Hunter was ever affected by this kind of thing. She was too strong to cry at a movie, even if her eyes still stung a little from all the smoke in the room.

She didn't say anything though, still pressed up against Smoker's side, and she could feel her breathing. It had been fairly consistent throughout most of the movie, a bit labored at points probably because she smoked so much, but now there was a slight flutter to it that wasn't there before. Hunter wasn't exactly eager for a distraction, since it wasn't like the movie was getting to her or anything, but she turned her attention to Smoker regardless. She didn't look at her, but she listened.

Tony struggled to sing, and Smoker raised a fist to her mouth and coughed, as she usually did every five or ten minutes. When it was over, she sniffed, and she ran one hand roughly across the side of her face away from Hunter.

All these hints seemed to add up to one thing, and it seemed so unbelievable that Hunter couldn't stop the words that came out of her mouth. "Oh my god, are you crying?"

"No," Smoker said, taking in a sharp breath and looking away from her. She sniffed again. "Fuck you."

Holy shit. Holy shit! She was! She was and Hunter had absolutely no idea what to do. She wasn't supposed to cry! She wasn't supposed to cry at a stupid movie like this, that was for sure. She'd been hoping for some more insight into Smoker as a person, but this was almost too much. She really didn't know how to react at all.

"You are!" And as usual, she started talking when she should have been thinking. "Oh my god, you're crying at a musical-"

"Fuck you, I'm not." Smoker sounded angrier now, although there was a distinct tremor to her voice. She sniffed again, frustrated, and tried to turn away from her. "It's none of your damn business anyway."

Well, that wasn't helping, but Hunter was still too flabbergasted to think of much else to do. What was she supposed to say? Was she supposed to say something? If she was crying at a movie or something, how would she want someone to react? Preferably by pretending it wasn't happening, although it seemed a little late for that now. She should have just kept quiet and pretended she hadn't noticed, but as usual, she just had to say something. Damn it.

Well, now what could she do? What would Hunter want someone to do if she was the one who was upset? She wouldn't want them to hug her or talk to her about it, or ask her what was wrong, or anything like that. She also wouldn't want someone to tease her about it 'cause that'd just make her angry, and that seemed to be the case with Smoker as well judging by her reaction. So what was she supposed to do? This was one of those things where she was sure a normal person would know what to do, a situation that everyone was supposed to know how to handle, and Hunter was at a complete loss. What little she did know about Smoker didn't give her many options - they were similar enough that she knew some methods wouldn't work, and different enough where she just had no idea what would set her off. What was she supposed to say?

"I guess it is kind of a downer," Hunter said, noticing that the credits were rolling now. She'd missed whatever had happened after Tony had died, but it probably wasn't important.

Smoker made an irritated sound under her breath, but didn't say anything further.

Hunter wasn't sure if she should leave it at that, but couldn't think of anything else to say or do. So she sat in the dark with her as the credits went by, listened to her sniff every now and then and her breathing calming, although her limbs were trembling with the effort of it. No doubt Smoker was just as opposed to crying in front of her as Hunter would be in return. Maybe it was the movie, maybe it was a combination of the beer and the movie, but she had a feeling that Smoker would not want to talk about this ever again, and would probably even deny it ever happened. Which Hunter could respect, really.

But still, the fact that it had happened at all was still circling in her head, repeatedly stunning her with its sheer unlikeliness. Who would have thought? Smoker, whose default mood was don't-give-a-shit, who was probably one of the butchest women she'd ever met, who rarely seemed to go outside the bored-to-irritated range of emotions, had just ended up crying on her couch over a movie. Over an old movie no less! A musical! If she'd ever wondered if Smoker had a vulnerable side, or if she ever opened up, or if she had the ability to be anything other than annoyed or smug, then this answered that question pretty clearly.

Smoker could get sad just like anyone else could. Smoker cried at old silly movies. She couldn't stop thinking about it. Hunter had been hoping to come closer to her tonight, to understand her better, to tie them together so that when she left, when she gave her the money and left...

She could come back.

Hunter's mouth opened slightly at the realization, at the motivation that had been lurking under her actions the entire night. This was more than just making her required payments less of a chore, more than idle curiousity or an attempt to amuse herself, more than a desire to see how far she could go, how close she could get. She wanted to come back. She wanted to keep coming back and keep seeing her and keep talking to her and being friends with her, and it was because she wanted to be with her.

She _liked_ her. Not ironically, not halfway. She liked her.

Sincerity. She wasn't used to this.

She didn't want this to end.

The movie had gone back to the main menu now, and the two of them were sitting in the dark in relative silence. Hunter had been lost in her own thoughts, and no doubt Smoker was the same way, although her breathing had evened out and she was only sniffing every now and then. Apparently she was back under control, and Hunter almost felt bad about how relieved she was as a result. She really wasn't good with crying people at all.

Someone had to do something though to break the silence because soon it was going to get awkward (or... more awkward) and Hunter decided it might as well be her. She pushed off of Smoker and stood up in one motion, although her legs protested a little. Apparently she'd been sitting in such a way that part of her left leg had fallen asleep. Whoops.

"That was pretty weird," Hunter said, stretching and not looking at Smoker. She tried not to wince at the slow return of feeling to her leg. "Sort of fun though. So that movie's a big deal?"

"You could say that," Smoker said, after a moment, and she heard her get up to go turn on the lights. Her voice cracked once or twice. "Not sure if it's worth explaining to such a philistine though."

"Who, me?" Hunter forced a smile, and after a few moments it started to feel natural, and she turned around. Smoker was leaning against the wall, her hands in her pockets, almost suspiciously nonchalant. Like nothing had happened, and it was hard to tell that she'd been crying - her eyes were already sunken and red from the smoke. She wasn't going to talk about it, which was good because Hunter didn't want to bring it up.

Hunter wasn't going to forget it happened though. "I watched your dumb movie, didn't I?"

Smoker stared at her for a few moments, and then she smirked. There was an edge to it that felt forced, but it was better than the alternative. "You did, and you liked it, too. So I guess you aren't completely hopeless."

"It was good for a laugh I guess. I don't know if I _liked_ it." Hunter rolled her shoulders, and she put her hands back in her pouch. She did like it, but she was pretty sure Smoker could tell from the look on her face. Smoker looked so different when she was smiling, even if it was something like a smirk... even though it made those lines appear near her eyes and the corner of her mouth, it kind of softened her a bit. "So now what, now that I've finally joined the rest of the world and watched West Side Story?"

"Now I go to sleep, and you..." A moment, and her smirk faltered. Smoker straightened from the wall, brushing herself off and smoothing down her overshirt, which gave her a convenient excuse to look down. "You give me my money."

"Oh..." That kind of killed the mood a little, and Hunter frowned. She looked to one side, wondering if there was any way she could prolong the night at all (given that Smoker had work the next day, probably not), and she reluctantly dug through her pouch. "Right."

"You got it with you, don't you?" Smoker came over to her, to stand in front of her, and Hunter didn't quite look up at her just yet. She stared down at her boots while she folded and unfolded the money in her pouch where Smoker couldn't see. Smoker wore huge boots, heavy looking, the kind of boots you could use to curbstomp someone. She wasn't sure what brand they were. They looked pretty well-worn.

"Yeah..." she said, eventually, and having put it off as long as she possibly could, she took out the money and held it out to her. Smoker counted it, slowly, twice, and then she put it in her pocket.

"Alright then... that should cover it," she said.

"I guess," Hunter said, wondering if her reluctance at doing this was as obvious as it felt.

"Hold on, let me go get your thing." Smoker turned away from her and went into her bedroom, and Hunter looked around the living room while she was gone. Of course, if she wanted to come back here, then she would, no question. She always did what she meant to do, and she won. She succeeded at things, and she'd succeed at becoming friends with Smoker, and she'd come back here. Of course.

Still... some part of her couldn't resist looking around the place again, trying to commit it all to memory, just in case. This wouldn't be the last time she saw this room, or saw Smoker, because she was going to come back, but... just in case.

Smoker came back out of her room, looking down at the iPod in her hands. She didn't look entirely happy either, although that might have been wishful thinking on Hunter's part. She handed it to her.

"There."

She pressed play, waiting for it to load, and noticed that the battery was almost gone. "You didn't mess with it or anything, did you?"

"Why would I mess with your little toy?" Smoker had her hands back in her pockets.

"It's not a toy, it's a music player," Hunter said, flicking through the songs idly for something to do with her hands. "Don't tell me you don't know what an iPod is? And after you were all on my case about not seeing West Side Story."

"I know what an iPod is." Smoker shrugged, unaffected by her comment. "Still a little toy. What do you even have on it, anyway?"

"It's all pretty obscure. I bet you've never heard of it." Hunter couldn't help but smirk at that - she always responded with that when her friends asked, especially David because she liked poking fun at him for being such a hipster sometimes, but apparently the comment flew over Smoker's head. So out of the loop. She just shrugged again.

"It's probably terrible."

"You haven't even heard it!" Hunter turned it off and put it back in her pouch. "I listened to your music in the car-"

"And you said that was terrible, so I know you've got no taste." Smoker looked down at her, and her mouth twitched every now and then like she was thinking of smiling, but couldn't quite commit to it. "Oh, almost forgot..."

She went to the table near the door, opening her wallet and fishing out a card. She came back and handed her back her ID.

"Here. If you don't already have a new one."

"You kept it in your wallet?"

"I didn't want to lose it."

Hunter felt a little touched by that, although she couldn't logically think of why. They were rapidly running out of things to say, and she still didn't want tonight to end. She didn't want to say goodbye to her.

"So..." Smoker said, in the tone of voice someone uses when they want you to leave. Hunter hoped that wasn't the case.

"So I guess that's it," Hunter said, looking down.

"Guess so," Smoker said, and she sniffed. At least she didn't sound very happy.

There were a number of questions running through her head that she could have asked: Are we friends now? Can I come back? Do you want me to come back? What would happen if I came back next week anyway? Will you still open the window?

That one stuck with her, echoing and she wasn't sure why. Will you still open the window? And yet, what kind of a stupid thing was that to say to someone? You don't just walk up to a person and say "Hey, are we friends, by the way?", that's not how friendships worked. You didn't _confirm_ it with your new buddy, they just happened. She couldn't ask her if she was her friend yet, that sounded stupid and ridiculous and knowing her, Smoker would probably say "no" just to get her worked up, and she didn't want that in response to a serious question. Which might have been why she had so much trouble with serious questions, come to think of it.

"So..." Hunter said, because the silence was getting too long.

"I do have work tomorrow, you know," Smoker said, again with a hinting tone in her voice. How could Hunter stay longer? How could she at least make sure she could come back?

Maybe this was one of those situations where she didn't have to ask permission... maybe it'd be better if she just showed up next week and forced Smoker to make a decision then, instead of now when she had the time to think about it and the time to say no. Maybe that would work and that would also mean she wouldn't have to ask her or bare her soul or do anything embarrassing like that. Maybe that's what she should do.

Surely Smoker wouldn't shut the window on her if she was already there, right? She'd opened it for her today, hadn't she?

Maybe maybe maybe. "Right, I know..." Hunter said, again trying to fill in those pauses in a desperate attempt to make this a little less awkward. Why was this so hard? She didn't remember this being so hard with her other friends. Then again they hadn't blackmailed her for weeks, which did put a different spin on the whole affair.

"So..." Again, and Smoker cocked her head towards the window.

"I... I had fun tonight," Hunter said, and she immediately regretted it since that was a stupid thing to just say out loud. _Durr hurr, are you my friend? Check yes or no._ Ugh! "You know..."

Smoker was quiet for a while, and Hunter looked up at her face. She blinked once or twice in response, perhaps a little puzzled, and she tilted her head slightly. She didn't smile at her, and her voice was strangely neutral.

"Okay."

What kind of response was that? Hunter felt a surge of irrational frustration that Smoker couldn't be the first one to say it, that Smoker couldn't just make this easy and ask for her to stay. Then it wouldn't be Hunter's problem, and she wouldn't have to be thinking about any of this. But of course Smoker wouldn't say any of that, and had Hunter been more self-aware she might have realized it was for reasons similar to her own, but at the moment she was just frustrated at herself and the entire situation and that it came down to her to do something about it and she didn't know what to do or say to stay, and she wanted to stay.

"How many movies like that do you got?" Hunter looked at the TV, and Smoker again gestured at the window.

"I'm not watching another one, I told you. I have work tomorrow, and it's late. I shouldn't have even watched this one, frankly," she said, and she coughed into her hand before replacing it in her pocket. She shifted a little back and forth between one foot and the other. Either the awkwardness of the exchange was getting to her, or maybe she had something she also wanted to say, but couldn't bring herself quite to do it. Maybe.

The chances were that Hunter wouldn't have the time to find out.

"Maybe we can watch another one later," she blurted out, and she almost slapped her forehead in response as soon as it left her mouth. Every time! Well, that was as close to asking her if she could come back as she'd come so far, and at least it was out there now. There was no taking it back.

The surge of adrenaline that came with saying something like that left her feeling twitchy, and she almost couldn't keep her eyes on Smoker's face in case of what she said. But she did, she kept her eyes on her, and Smoker blinked at her in response several times, startled again by the question, before she raised one eyebrow.

"You already paid me back, kid." Clearly confused, and that wasn't really the reaction she'd been hoping for. _Sure!_ would have been nice. _Of course_! would have been good too. _What the hell?_ was not very high on her list. What she said was pretty much a "no" by the tone in voice, and that was probably right at the bottom. Her spirits sunk, and Hunter frowned, hoping she didn't look quite as disappointed as she felt. She didn't want Smoker seeing her being a big baby about this. It wasn't a big deal after all, she just wanted to come back and hang out with her, so what if she couldn't anymore, it wasn't like she cared. She had other friends, really. She was fine.

It was hard not to let her crushing disappointment show through though, as much as she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of her. "Right... I guess I better get going."

"I guess," Smoker said, after a few moments, and they stood there in the living room for a few moments more, not quite looking at each other, shifting uneasily. Hunter wasn't sure if she should shake her hand, or pat her shoulder, or give her a hug or what. So she just turned away from her and started for the window, not looking back because she didn't want Smoker to see the look on her face.

"Okay... bye." She wasn't sure what else she could say, or could bring herself to say. She opened the window and waited.

"Bye," Smoker said, finally, and her voice was a bit thin. The temptation to look back and see if Smoker was as upset about this as her rose up, but she fought it down. She probably wasn't, and it'd be easier if she just left, and whatever, right? Whatever. She didn't care. It was over now, and that was that. Right?

When she was some distance away, she pulled out her cellphone and went down to Ray's number, thought about it, and then called Jordan instead. At least Jordan wouldn't tell anyone if she ended up crying over the phone. Which she didn't.

Really.

\---

At the beginning of the night, Smoker never wanted to see Hunter again because she was a stupid, selfish, obnoxious brat. By the end of it, she never wanted to see her again because she was utterly humiliated.

She couldn't believe she'd done that, that she'd actually gone and gotten choked up when someone could see her! She wanted to blame it on the beer, mostly so she wouldn't blame herself for it, and she _still_ felt like an idiot. She'd made so many poor decisions that night; letting Hunter in at all for one, then giving her food ("never feed a stray cat" some obnoxious voice in her said, which didn't help), then letting her poke around her house, and then letting her pick out a movie, and then she'd even decided to watch West Side Story of all things. Of all the movies she could have picked, it had to be that one! It couldn't be something stupid and fun like Guys and Dolls or Bye Bye Birdie, it had to be West Side Story.

And she'd gone along with it! That was probably her worst decision to date because she _knew_ that West Side Story always got to her. Every time Tony and Maria reprised Somewhere together at the end, and Maria gave her speech about how she'd learned to hate, her heart quietly broke a little for them. It was all so senseless and unfair, and they'd come so close so many times. She knew that going into the movie, she'd seen it enough times to know that, which was why she always turned to that movie for emotional catharsis after a long day. But it was emotional catharsis that she always went through alone, where no one could see her getting teary eyed and more importantly, no one could judge her for it. Because she knew people would judge her for it.

And lo and behold, a lapse of judgment, one of so many that night, led to her deciding to watch _that_ movie, of all things. Hunter had to pick _that_ movie out of all of them. And they had to watch it because Hunter had never seen it, and in spite of her best efforts she'd ended up getting choked up while Hunter was practically in her lap, and it was beyond humiliating. She could never face her again.

And that was another aspect about the entire mess that kept digging at her. When she thought about what happened, how embarrassing it was, how stupid it was she'd agreed to it, why she'd let it happen, it always came back to Hunter, and it always came back to when she'd see Hunter again. Which was ridiculous, because she was not going to see Hunter again. Hunter had paid off her debt - Hunter had no reason to come back. It was the end of their transaction, their forced time spent together, and now her life could go back to normal. Hunter had come and gone and now things were back to normal, and she wouldn't see her again. Why would she?

And yet, when she thought about what happened, burned with the humiliation of it all, wished for a time machine so she could go back and stop herself from ever agreeing to watching that movie, it always came back to again. Could never face Hunter again, never look her in the eye again, what would she say when she saw her again, could never watch a movie with her again. Again again again again, and she wasn't going to see her again! The fact she couldn't shake that was beyond frustrating. The whole matter was beyond frustrating.

As things usually were with Hunter.

She'd been all ready to bawl her out when she showed up at her window again, prepared to tell her just where her and her stupid bravado could shove it, and then Hunter caught her off-guard before she knew what was happening. She explained herself, and she phrased it in a way where she couldn't help but feel some camaraderie with her, understanding of her position, of a world that thought you wouldn't fight so you had to fight back, and damn her, she probably knew that. She didn't know how she'd let her feelings get so easily manipulated, or why she'd let a moment of understanding overcome her better judgment. She never should have let her in. Into her house, into her head, she never should have let this happen. Hunter snuck in and made herself at home and she hated her for it, that she made it so she couldn't hate her. What a fucking thing to do.

She hated the relief she felt when Hunter had appeared at her window without any further injuries, she hated how she'd felt a pang of sympathy for her explanation, she hated how her feelings were overriding her thoughts most of the time, and she hated how flattered she'd felt when Hunter gobbled up her fish like a starving monster and told her it was delicious. She hated that she liked how that felt, that she even cared that Hunter liked it, that she cared about her at all, that she'd weaseled her little way into her thoughts.

She hated her for making her like her, and she wasn't sure if there was a word for that.

Hunter pressed up against her on the couch, like it was nothing, and the last person that had done that was her ex-boyfriend and it always just meant he wanted sex and she usually wasn't in the mood, and then he'd get all pissy at her and ugh, she didn't want to be reminded of that or think about that but Hunter wouldn't get off her, and she just stayed there and didn't do anything and kept talking to her, and damn her, she'd actually tricked her into dealing with it. She'd tricked her into putting up with it and enjoying how she kept her side warm, she'd tricked her into not caring, and how did someone do that? She did care, she didn't want her touching her, it was weird and people didn't do that, and Hunter kept doing it and she was doing some kind of Hunter mind-washing where it was starting to not seem completely bizarre.

God, she was right. She'd gone crazy after all. Hunter had done it, she'd driven her insane and now they were friends. God damn it. They were friends and Hunter had seen her cry. This was possibly the lowest point in her entire life.

At least it was over. That thought was supposed to be comforting and yet strangely wasn't, so Smoker kept repeating it over and over so it'd do what it was supposed to. It was over. She'd never see Hunter again. Over over over. She'd never have to deal with her or her stupid comments or her stupid little cat ears or her big mouth ever again, it was over and now she could live in peace and quiet, like she used to. Like she wanted to. It was over.

And yet, when Hunter was standing there, obviously dying to ask her if she could come back, Smoker was tempted to say something like, "If you're _that_ desperate to see me again..." or something equally stupid, and she was furious with herself for thinking that (well, mostly about how she'd actually cried in front of her, but aside from that) and so instead, she said nothing. She wasn't sure if it was to spite Hunter or herself, in retrospect. Either way, Hunter hadn't seemed entirely happy about the situation, or saying goodbye, and in a way that only made things worse. It would have been easier if Hunter had just taken the iPod and ran out the window, laughing and going "See you later, sucker!" or something like that. But no, she just looked heartbroken. Like a kicked kitten. Shit. She hated that it almost made her feel bad for the little pest.

Hunter really wanted to stay with her. She wanted to come back. Smoker wasn't dumb - it was obvious. And the worst part about it was, the absolute worst part, was that Smoker sort of wanted her to stay too. Some stupid part of her did want her to come back, some stupid part of her wanted to invite her to come on over why not, eat all my food and then watch me weep over the end of West Side Story, it'll be fun ha ha ha. Goddamn it, what was wrong with her? Why? Why would she want that? Why? When did this happen to her?

God damn it.

It was hard for her to go to sleep the night that Hunter left, and sleep didn't come easily to her the week afterwards either. She couldn't stop thinking about what had happened, or berating herself for letting herself get so emotional in front of her, and consumed by thoughts of what Hunter might say about it when she saw her again, and she'd have to remind herself that she wasn't going to see her again, _remember_ , but she never remembered.

Her tension grew throughout the week, even during the weekend when she usually took the time to relax. She couldn't pin down exactly why until it came to a head on Tuesday.

Which, she realized on her way home from work, was the day that Hunter usually came by to give her her money.

Not that that meant she was going to come by this time. Why would she? She'd already paid her her money. She'd have no reason to come back. After all, it wasn't like Smoker had invited her back. They'd gone their separate ways now, living their own separate lives.

Expecting her to come back was pointless. It was over. The entire thing was over, and she could stop thinking about it.

Really, she could stop thinking about it any time.

She came home, put her keys on her table, shook out her hair, went into the kitchen and her eyes went to the window without thinking about it. She growled at herself for looking for her, justified it as just wanting to get a look outside like any normal person would do, everyone did that, and she turned to her cabinets. She was hungry, and at least cooking usually put her mind at ease. She could focus on ingredients and preparation instead of other more pressing problems. Like how she was not glancing back at that window every now and then.

She wasn't sure exactly how much time she wanted to spend in her kitchen making something, particularly since she'd had a late night the night before and thus had been feeling tired all day, so she thought a simple pasta might work. There was a recipe that she preferred for tomato sauce, but that could take up to an hour to make and she didn't want to make that much of a commitment. In an hour she wanted to be in bed, asleep.

The quickest solution would just be a box of pseudo-instant pasta. Not terribly healthy, but it was fast and she knew a few tricks to give it more of a kick than it normally had. She tried to focus on that, how she could improve it, instead of how she kept turning her head at every small sound outside the window.

Frustrated at her lack of self-control, she eventually set up a chair by her stove so she could keep her back to the window as much as possible, grumbling to herself about the entire thing as she stirred the contents of the pot. Hunter wasn't coming back. She was getting her hopes up for nothing. And she'd never been one to hope for the impossible. She was too sensible for that, she'd always been too sensible for that kind of thing. Fantasy stayed where it was supposed to be - in her movies or her books. Far too many people couldn't keep those things straight, and Smoker was not one of those people.

She didn't hope for the impossible, things that were not going to happen. Like Hunter coming back. Hunter was not coming back. Smoker had made sure of that last time, whether she'd intended to or not, with her perhaps terse response to Hunter's desire to watch more movies with her. Not that she even wanted her to come back, really. Things were back to normal now. This was exactly what she'd wanted all along. She could stop thinking about her any time.

Any time.

She heard something outside on the fire escape, and she gritted her teeth and kept her eyes focused on the pot, her thoughts focused on her dinner. She was not turning around. There was, there _should_ be nothing there. She was not doing this. She was not hoping for her. She was not. She didn't want her to come back. She wasn't coming back. Things were back to normal now. It was a bird, or a cat, or nothing at all, but it wasn't her, it shouldn't be her, and even if it was, she didn't care. It was all over now. This was the end. Something she was thinking this firmly, that she knew to be true so surely, would have to be true. She was not hoping that it was her. That was a fact.

The noise outside her window stopped. Her entire body felt tense, one hand clenched in her lap in a shaking fist, and she wasn't sure when she'd even done that, how long her fingernails had been digging into her palm. She kept the other hand tightly clasped around her fork, stirring clockwise methodically in a way that she hoped would remove any other thoughts from her mind. Round and round, make each revolution the same speed, focus on that and the pot and the dinner and not on anything else. She could hear her refrigerator whirring, the hiss of the burner, the faint bubbling of the pot, and that was all she cared about, and the only thing she was straining to hear. The _only_ thing. She was stirring her dinner and soon it'd be done, and she'd eat it alone and go to sleep alone and sleep all night, for once, and that would be that. That was what would happen. There'd be nothing, no one else. She was not turning around. She was not waiting for anything. She was trembling because she was cold, because she should put on a sweater, not because of every nerve being on edge, waiting for something that wasn't coming, not because of every frantic contraction that sent a wave through her as her body wanted to do _some_ thing, wanted _some_ thing to happen, and nothing was going to happen. It didn't mean anything. She was not turning around. She was cold, that was all. She was not waiting for anything.

A few taps on her window, and the fork clacked against the edge of the pot loudly, her hand jerking, her heart pounding like she was in danger. Which, in a way, was somewhat fitting. Maybe it was a bird, maybe it was a cat, but the possibility of either now seemed slim. Reality had refused to match her definition, and the impossible had come waltzing back up to her, waiting for her outside her window. Tapping with one calloused finger, insistent and gut-wrenching. She was there. She had come back, against all odds, against any kind of common sense, against everything that said she shouldn't, but she'd come back. She was there, waiting for her. Behind her, out of sight, and if she turned around, she'd see her there. And if she turned around, that'd be it. It'd be the end of her. If she turned around and acknowledged her presence, opened the window, she'd never be rid of her. Things would never be the same again. She could stay here, stay where she was, stay focused on what she should, on her life as it should be, keep her back to the window and if she did that long enough, surely the tapping would stop. Surely the situation would pass her by, Hunter's impossible resurfacing thwarted. If she kept her back to her, she would leave, and she would not return, and she would be alone again.

And if she turned around, it'd be over. If she turned around, things would never be the same again. This was her decision. So much of this had been out of her control - she'd never asked Hunter to crash through her window, and she had to keep talking to her to get the money to pay for the damages, and she'd put up with it because she had to. Because for all intents and purposes, she didn't have much of a choice.

She had a choice now.

She stood at the crossroads, and it was her decision, this was her _choice_ , and there was no going back. It was up to her. This was all up to her. If she went down this path, if she _chose_ this path and turned around, she could never go back. It'd be the end of her, of everything she knew. She could not turn around. She would not turn around.

"What took you so long?" Hunter said as she crawled past her inside. Smoker slammed the window shut.

There was no way this would ever be worth it. Someday she'd regret this. Someday Hunter was going to fuck her over, one way or the other, and she'd regret ever doing this. She should have listened to her gut, her intuition, everything that told her that this was a bad idea, everything that told her that this was the wrong thing to do. She should have, and she hadn't, and she'd let Hunter in.

"Damn pain in the ass. I must be out of my mind." Smoker turned away from the window, from her, digging in her pockets for a pack of cigarettes. She didn't have to be happy about any of this at least.

Without warning Hunter's arms encircled hers, trapping her arms against her body before she could pull them free of her pockets, and then she was getting crushed against her so suddenly and with such force that she almost lost her breath. Hunter was warm even though she'd just been outside, her body hard and unyielding, firm muscle she could feel even through her layers of clothes. The only soft part of her pressed against her stomach, and the tape around her chest even made her breasts feel more firm than she would have thought. She'd seen her carry her groceries up the stairs, but she'd never truly appreciated her strength until now. Unable to move her arms, she felt strangely trapped against her, Hunter's face buried in her chest and she had no idea what the word was for how it made her feel.

Smoker couldn't remember the last time a hug had made her feel confused and excited and oddly warm at the same time, even when she couldn't physically return it. And she hadn't even given much thought to the emotional ramifications of it yet, so caught up in how it felt. She wondered briefly if Hunter could hear how quickly her heart was beating, and the odds were pretty good she could, considering where her face was.

It was going to take her a while to sort out how she felt about all this, pin down how she felt and find a word for it, understand it, and she didn't have that kind of time now. When she was alone and could think, perhaps, but she wasn't about to talk about it now, or give any indication that she might have been feeling a lot more than she should, a lot she wasn't sure how to classify or deal with. She definitely couldn't let Hunter know any of that. She'd never let her live it down. She had to play it cool, and she could do that. She could always do that. What was the matter with Hunter anyway, hugging her that hard? That was the kind of mindset to be in, not... whatever else she was feeling.

"Jeezum crow, you tryin' to kill me?" she said when Hunter let go of her, breathing a little hard in spite of herself, and Hunter looked up at her. She was smiling, and there was a faint nervous edge around it, in her eyes, a shadow of what might have been relief or desperation, she wasn't sure. She blinked several times before speaking, and she could see her shoulders rising and falling, and apparently Smoker wasn't the only one who was a little out of breath as a result of an all too powerful hug.

"Yup." And her smile got wider, a slight shine to her eyes. "Could break all the bones in your body, wow. It wouldn't even be that hard."

It took Smoker a few seconds to realize that she was returning her smile, and with it came a sort of pleasant warmth across her face, and a small tremble to her hands. Not that that meant anything.

"Too bad you haven't worked on the one muscle that counts." She tapped Hunter's forehead, deeper implications of it all neatly sidestepped, and she went back to her food. In an instant, Hunter was hovering behind her, full of questions and resting her hands on her back.

Someday she was going to regret this. She knew it.


End file.
